A Guide to the village of Ashcott

1. A Guide to the village of Ashcott Written & published by pupils in Class 4 of Ashcott Primary School Spring 2011

2. Old Church Farm. Old Church Farm is in the High Street and is opposite the village hall.It used to be a working farm, now it is just a house. The house is made entirely out of stone, with wood and some glass in the windows. Some parts of Old Church Farm were built before Victorian times.

3. The cemetery is at least 200 years old, although some of the graves might be older. The ground in the cemetery is very uneven so digging the graves must have been very hard. The cemetery is right next to the village hall, a farm and the church. In the middle of the cemetery is a memorial.

4. The High Street used to be Ashcott’s main road. The new main road is very busy and scary. It is a very narrow road. It's usually crowded with cars and traffic. In 1940 when most of the houses were built, the main road didn’t used to be there. Many cars pass the Ashcott Inn, my house and F Griffiths & Sons whilst driving down the main road to where they want to go.

5. The Copse, which is now a house, was the home of the Ashcott policeman a long time ago. That’s why its called the Copse. You might think it got its name because the bushes and the trees in the garden. The house is at the end of Middle Street.

6. I go to parties in the Village Hall made in 1987. It is 23 years old.

7. The Ring O’ Bells has not always been a pub - it was a blacksmith’s. The pub is a place where people go to drink and to eat. I think it is called the Ring O’ Bells because it’s near the church. The Ring o Bells has a different menu at different times of the year.

8. Headway Hairdressers is not far from the main road, it's at the bottom of the hill. The shop is nearby. This old looking building, now headway hairdressers, has been running for many successful years and has many proud and happy customers. My aunty works there.

9. This terrace of cottages has some of the oldest buildings in Ashcott. They have very small windows because they would have to pay some tax for windows. They also have very nice gardens at the back. This terrace of cottages is at the top of Chapel Hill on the Meare road. It is also opposite Ashcott School. The three houses joined together used too be all one house with a barn at the side.

10. Here we have my school. It’s called Ashcott Primary School, and its where most children in the village go to school. There are only four classes in the school, so two year groups are in the same classroom. The school offers many activities like: country dancing, gardening, football, choir, music and sports. Our school is closely linked to a school in Africa called Tigoi. Our teachers have visited Tigoi and have shared our work and gifts. The new Ashcott School was opened by Miss Isobel Freakes, on 28th October 1986. But in 2009 two classrooms, an ICT suite and an office were opened on May 1st by Mr Pat Mann a former Headteacher. Now the school is much bigger and has been in the papers.

11. The Old School is at the bottom of the hill. It has been changed in to three small houses and the end one used to be the school hall. The girls wore knee lengths skirts with button-up shirts and the boys wore trousers and button-up shirts. The school had lots of Head Teachers. Some of them were: Mr Crowther, Mr King and Mr Mann.

12. Here is F Griffiths and Sons. They are a family run business, stocking a large range of meat. It used to have an abattoir but now it’s just a butcher’s shop and they have all their meat killed then brought in. All of the meat has a label on it telling you where it was kept and slaughtered. This shop, in Ashcott, is next to the main road. They have shops all over the West Country, for example in Street and Wells.

13. This shop is the only shop in Ashcott. It’s run by Mike. Mike is a friendly man. As you can see they sell lottery tickets. Its near the main road. This main road is very busy. LONDIS is an amazing shop.

14. This old Chapel was built round about 100 years ago. A couple of years later, it was turned from a Chapel into a Sunday school for Victorian children to go and learn. Up the road from the old Chapel is Ashcott School, the school that I go to. The street that leads up to the school is called Chapel Hill.

15. On the High Street, there is one of the oldest houses in the village. It is called Church farm. It’s called Church Farm because its built opposite the Church and it used to be a farm house. You can tell it is old, because it has leaded windows..

16. Hillhead Farmhouse A long time ago there were many farms in Ashcott. Nowadays, the farm houses are just peoples’ houses and most of the farmland has been built on. Hillhead Farmhouse is beside the main road near the village shop. It was built in lots of different parts from stone. One of the oldest parts was built in the 1600’s and one of the newest parts was built in the early 1900’s. Last century the down stairs bathroom used to be a village dairy where people would go with their jugs and they would fill them up with milk. The house used to be just one room upstairs and one room downstairs. The farm animals would stay downstairs and people would sleep upstairs, because the animals body heat heated upstairs. There are two old barns nearby and one used to be a hay loft. In the garden there is a big bell well, which would be used for drinking, watering crops, for the animals and cleaning. Captured Polish soldiers were sent there to help on the farm in the Second World War. Up until the mid 1980’s there was still gas lighting, which was very smelly and not very bright. The garage was used to store farm machinery. There is an old pig sty at the bottom of the garden.

17. A long time ago this was an old sweet shop. Grete Dodge was the owner. She sold sweets , tobacco and matches. Only oneroom was the shop. The sweets were kept in jars. The house was built in 1750 and had a flagstone floor with a wooden beam in the shop. The old sweet shop is High Street.

18. If you’re new to Ashcott, the signposts will help you find your way around. Even though Ashcott is quite small, you can still get lost. The signpost are at junctions around the village. They also tell you how near to other places you are. For example, Meare is three miles away.

19. The farm below is Charity Farm. It used to be called Poor Estate Farm until the owner died and gave it to charity - that’s how it got its name. This is Ashcott Farm. Home to many cows. Also known as friesens. It is not a farm any more it is now a cattery. This building use to be a house but now it is a barn for cows because they changed it because of an infestation of rats and made a house opposite.

20. The church dates from the early 12th century, around 1168. It’s at the end of the High Street. Every Sunday they have a service there, and, every now and then, they have funerals and weddings. The church is built of blocks of stone. At the moment they’re having building work done on the inside.

21. There are three bus stops in Ashcott, one at the Post Office , one at the school and one at the bottom of the hill. There are two types of bus routes. There is Webber Bus, which goes through the little lanes of Ashcott and First Bus, which drives on the main road. The buses drive through Taunton ,Bridgwater ,Street, Moorlinch, Sutton Mallett and Chedzoy.

22. This used to be the village forge. The blacksmith worked here. The forge is on the old main road of Ashcott, the High Street. In the forge they made metal things like horse shoes, nails , screws and candle stick holders. The Old Coach-house is at the bottom of Ashcott, on Middle Street. It is where the Lord of the Manor kept his horses and carriages. It used to be a barn! It is next to Manor House.

23. The village hall is a place were lots of sports and activities take place. It was built in1987, but before that it was called The Church Room because that’s where they had the old Sunday School. Local people came to help build it. A local farmer built the balcony and stage. It took 30 people to lift the stage and balcony into the newly built hall. It cost about £120,000 to build the new hall. The village hall had a concrete floor instead of wood, but they put the wood floor in afterwards.

24. The houses here used to be an orchard. They are in Ashcott, a village in Somerset, on High Street. Also they are across the road from the Ring O’ Bells, a pub. The houses next door used to be a farm building and the orchard was owned by the farm. But now they are just normal houses.

25. We hope that you have enjoyed finding out about our village and that you will perhaps be able to visit the village in the future. All photographs were taken by pupils from Class 4 and the accompanying text has been researched and written by them.