Edgarley mystery to be revealed on Friday

Back in the 1840s, the Porch family owned both the Abbey and Edgarley Hall (which in this photo looks rather like a period location for Alfred Hitchcock). Edgarley’s modern occupant is Millfield Prep School, since the 1940s.

The Porches were one of Glastonbury’s most prominent and influential families until they suddenly disappeared in the early 20th century — for reasons explained in an illustrated talk by Roger Parsons on Friday April 16 at 7pm, starting with a short guided tour of the house and grounds. Free and open to all.

In the grounds stands the Hermitage, a small-scale replica of the Abbot’s Kitchen built of Abbey stone in the 19th century. Millfield refurbished it while Roger taught languages.

About the society

It is somewhat startling to calculate that the Conservation Society has been doing its bit for more than 10% of the tercentenary that Glastonbury as a town recently celebrated: 38 years out of the 300. The society was formed in haste in 1971 in order to save the Crown Hotel in the central Market Place from being pulled down, as had several interesting medieval buildings nearby; swift spot-listing saved a number of other sites too. Today the Crown thrives as the Backpackers Inn. Another project was to rescue some of Glastonbury’s pre-Beeching heritage: the canopy from the railway station, by relocating it (ironically?) amid parked cars, in the main central carpark, where it shelters market stalls and makes two acres of asphalt easier on the eye. The trees in the carparks are the society’s work too.

Today, Glastonbury Conservation Society

• obtains copies of all planning applications and exercises the right to comment
• plants trees in town and 10 miles around: 43.653 trees in 39 years!
• hears interesting talks from experts on various aspects of our environment
• publishes a quarterly newsletter

The membership subscription is only £5 a year (and dare i say it, the newsletter alone is worth that much); members are of course free to give more.
 

• Eric King’s memories of the High Street in the 1940s (four-part series published in newsletters 95–99) Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Robin Huggett, touring New Zealand after a wedding, discovered a longcase clock with “R. Woollan, Glastonbury” inscribed on its face, at The Elms, a historic mission house built in 1847 amid warring Maori tribes. Can anyone shed light on the clock? Who made it? How did it come to be where it is? Write to the newsletter.
   Mr Huggett and his wife founded Becket’s Inn in Glastonbury High Street (in a building that was the town surgery for 250 years); they now live in France.

David Orchard grew up in the 1950s in a forgotten square near the top of the High Street. His schoolboy painting of it won him a scholarship. Somers Square was flattened to become a garage and eventually the Co-op supermarket. Now that too has been demolished and new cottages and flats have gone up; the developer called it Avalon Mews. Click here for a fuller version of David Orchard’s piece, from Newsletter 115.

• The Street Society — our neighbour, two miles west of Glastonbury
• Wells Civic Society — our cathedral city, five miles north
• Frome and District Civic Society
• Mendip Society — people who care for the Mendip Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• Bridgwater & District Civic Society — historic town 15 miles west of us
• The Civic Trust — the national umbrella organization for 850 grassroots societies like ours around Britain (patron: HRH the Prince of Wales)
• Past pupils of St Louis convent school in Magdalene Street, now converted to four large dwellings, have set up a website of reminiscences and history.

Articles include:
•  Victorian Glastonbury was in transition too
•  “Bees and mankind” talk at AGM
•  Somerset defences in wartime
•  John Cannon chronicles from 1730s published
•  Civic Voice launches as national champion
A few recent articles in full:
•  Morlands buildings occupied at last — but it’s not what the RDA intends [from Newsletter 127, published 2009 Jan 12]
•  Assuring the future of the Abbey: Vicky Dawson outlines the conservation plan
•  Where was the Swan Inn? (Still a mystery.)
•  Bushy Coombe is now a wildlife area — and the path up the hill is now mud-free!
•  The hidden history of the Roman Catholic church in Glastonbury (a talk by Michael Protheroe