Combe Downer Alert

[The Server Side Guy]

Just been served a pint that was a good inch and a half from the top of the glass so, as you do, I pointed out to the landlord that he’d just served me a Combe Downer.

Tumbleweed.

Obviously a blow in from London with no local knowledge so, I explained, the term Combe Downer originates from the days when the stone used in the construction of Georgian Bath was quarried on Combe Down on the southern edge of Bath. These quarrymen were a boozy lot and the pubs would serve them takeouts that were carried down into the mines where they were at work but to prevent any spillage they would be filled to within an inch of the top of the glass. Hence a Combe Downer.

Miserable sod, I was expecting a free drink for that little factoid but he could barely bring himself to even top me back up. The days when my local knowledge = kerching-a-ding-a-ling are sadly over it seems.

[AtW]

You do understand that you've got serious mental problems?

[jamesbrown]

You do understand that you've got serious mental problems?

Gricer barely understands how to breath - thick as mince, least compelling sockie ever conceived.

[GigiBronz]

Gricer barely understands how to breath - thick as mince, least compelling sockie ever conceived.

I understand the first part but someone has to put an effort to bring chatting bots around here. Who would that be? I don't expect it to be foreign, but if internal with what intentions?

[ravenshaw]

The days when my local knowledge = kerching-a-ding-a-ling are sadly over it seems.

Inneresting.

Kerching-a-ding-a-ling!

Kerching a ding a Ling

[OwlHoot]

Some French guy once said "Hell is other people", but he was wrong.

Hell is being forced to spend eternity sitting with Gricer at a bar with him regaling you with anecdotes and local histoy trivia!

[The Server Side Guy]

...for anyone that’s interested, the quarry from which the above originated was Shaft Road Quarry which actually hasn’t been worked since 1914.

http://www.mcra.org.uk/registry/sitedetails.php?id=1671

In more recent times it was used as an air raid shelter during the Bath Blitz and during my own childhood, the entrance to the tunnels was still open and we used to frequently explore the warren of tunnels that extend underneath the whole of Combe Down. It was always advisable to take some chalk to mark the direction of the exit at the many junctions one would encounter. Failure to do this could lead to you never been seen or heard of again and there was more than one instance I can recall where this happened to some poor, hapless soul.

These days they’ve closed the entrance to the quarries and filled in the tunnels to address the many problems of subsidence that beset many of the properties on Combe Down.

Bath Stone is still quarried at a number of smaller sites such as Midford Quarry but there’s nothing operational on the Down these days. In fact, recently, one of the original stone workings at Corsham has been reopened owing to demand for Bath stone making it the oldest working Bath stone quarry anywhere so maybe this lovely, golden hued oolitic limestone has a future.

[xoggoth]

Coombe Down, hmm, vaguely remember that. I went to to Bath Uni.

Forget the Gricer callers, I quite like old history stuff, esp. with some personal connections.

[AtW]

I think it's xoggoth who is the ultimate Gricer's sock puppet master, mods!!!

[The Server Side Guy]

Coombe Down, hmm, vaguely remember that. I went to to Bath Uni.

Forget the Gricer callers, I quite like old history stuff, esp. with some personal connections.

Well indeed, I guess it would ring a few bells since Bath Uni is on Claverton Down which is the neighbouring down to Combe Down.

Let me take you down memory lane Xoggy. You’d turn left out of the campus onto North Road and carry on straight past the top of Brassknocker Hill. I don’t know if you remember the Viaduct Hotel at the foot of that hill? Very popular venue for bands back in the day. Sadly it’s now closed after having been a bail hostel for a short while.

You then pass Rainbow Woods on the right, most of which was flattened in the great storm of 1990 with the aforementioned Shaft Road opposite. I did my cycling proficiency down there and spent many happy hours riding up and down on the Shaft.

Further on we have the Rockery Tea Gardens, another popular venue, sadly now closed, where people would hold wedding receptions and all manner of celebrations. My old man was in the house band there - The Jeyes Fluid Quartet with The Band of the Workers of the Harbutts Plasticine Factory. Yep, the only plasticine factory in the world was in Bath. Bathampton, in fact.

Next we come to the top of Ralph Allen’s Drive where, ensconced in a wooded dell, sits Prior Park College - a girl’s public school but once the former home of the aforementioned Mr Allen (who was, incidentally, chiefly responsible for the splendour of Bath’s Georgian architecture). Another footnote I could add here is that I once had a summer job there manning the school laundry.

On the other side of North Road from Ralph Allen’s is The Avenue - a tree lined thoroughfare that leads into old Combe Down Village. I always remember old Ing’s Stores along there - a proper old fashioned grocery that even had its own errand boy who would make his deliveries on an old sit up and beg iron cycle.

Along a bit more we have the MOD, or “The Admiralty” as it was always called. Although, actually we don’t because this has since been flattened to build houses. The loss of the MOD has sounded the death knell for the parade of shops in front of the Foxhill Estate as North Road becomes Bradford Road since many relied on the passing trade of the workers on their way to and from the Admiralty.

We’re in deepest Combe Down now and pretty much the area that was my old stomping ground. If you were to dropdown one of the roads leading off Bradford Road on the opposite side to the estate, you’d be afforded wonderful views over the Horsecombe Vale and you should be able to clearly see Midford Castle - a pile built for a 17th century playboy in the form of 3 conjoined crenellated towers such that when viewed from above they take the form of the club card suit. Lately this has been the home of Nicholas Cage but he has been forced to sell the property in order to pay his tax bill I believe.

Finally we reach The Glasshouse garage and St Martin’s Hospital. Some interesting history here as the glasshouse on which the garage stands was once a military prison and what’s now the hospital was a workhouse at one time. We’re now on Odd Down which is quite fitting, perhaps, as such grim associations as these are not really not befitting of gentile Combe Down.

Hope that’s jogged a few pleasant memories for you Xoggy and maybe next time we’ll head out from Odd Down to Southdown and Twerton for a tour of the sleazier area of Old Bath :