The Branscombe Project

[Box 11 & 12] Chapel and church rubbed along well enough. They were the hubs of Sunday worship… and places where, before and after service, families and friends met and chatted …

The Methodists started in a farm kitchen, then built a small Chapel up at Street, and then, in 1901, built the big one further down the road. They had a school house, and great fêtes were held in the field across the road. The Chapel closed in 1983.

The Church was built and rebuilt over the centuries, using both local greenstone and high-quality Beer stone. There’s a fine carved capital on the floor by the Installation. In 1539/40, John Taylor, Protestant and ardent anti-papist, pulled down many of the earlier church fittings and white-washed the frescoes. Eventually he was burnt at the stake. In the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth century, the Rev. Puddicombe, an irascible but kind-hearted man, tore out the old benches and installed ‘horse-boxes’ and a three-decker pulpit so that he could keep his eye on his noisome congregation. Look across at the three-decker pulpit and beyond to a few forlorn horse-boxes in the north transept.

In Church and Chapel, community festivals marking the seasons have always been important. This Autumnal Arts Festival follows in their wake - whilst over at Bulstone and Elbow farm, seasonal celebrations salute the Solstice and Equinox.

[Box 8] Pubs were - at least for the men - social hubs. Gossip passed, and occasional insurrection was plotted. The Masons Arms on the Square, the Fountain Head at Street, and the Three Horseshoes, on the A3052 just outside the parish, all date to the early nineteenth century. The Three Horseshoes has gone, the others still survive.  

There were fewer places for women to gather. They met informally, working in the fields, fetching water, sitting together over their pillows,

taking their lace to the middle-men, and visiting the tiny front-room shops along the village street.

[Box 7] Forges were the hubs of the farming world. In the nineteenth century there was a small one at Hole Bottom, a medium-sized one at Street (next to the Fountain Head), and a big one close to the village hall. Oxen, horses, donkeys all had to be shoed, cart-wheels, and all the iron- work used on farm gates and in houses, even children’s hoops, were created and repaired by the smiths. The arrival of cars and farm mechanisation changed all that… now only the smithy close to the village hall remains and specialises in ornamental iron-work.

Branscombe - ‘History in the Making’

A dozen and more boxes… six thousand years and more… objects that reflect past and present.  The stories chosen are often less about people with means and power - big land-owners, church dignitaries - and more about villagers getting on with their lives … just getting by.

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[Box 9] Objects. An old shoe found in the rafters at Woodhead - said to keep the witches at bay. A china guinea pig rescued when the Three Horseshoes was demolished. Bottles, mainly from the 1930s and 40s, from tips in the old quarries behind Woodhouse.

[Box 10] Through the centuries, people arrive… people leave. So it has always been… People arriving in search of work… marrying-in… People leaving, particularly after WW11, to find work in factories or on the railways. And, nowadays, with Branscombe designated an ’iconic’ village, retired people arrive, second- homers, air b&bs…  People leave because they can’t afford to buy or rent.  Sometimes people arrive seeking refuge…                                     

Grateful thanks to:

Artefacts: Nicola; George/Joe; Laura/ Jon; Jenny/ Ian; Linda/ John; Amanda; Phyllis/ Edwin; Angela/ Tony; Dorothy, Norah, Sarah, Jean, Marilyn, Barry/Jill, Cory, Maisie …

David (Masons Arms); Jonny (Fountain Head), Simon (Forge), Steve (Beer Quarry Caves), Alan (Beer Fisheries), Jenna & the children (Branscombe Primary School), Chris (AONB)

Painting boxes, mounting the exhibition, website: Maisie, Priscilla, Angela, Sarah, Maitrinara, Ralph, Martin, Ross, Jill & Tony,

Sue, Rose

Special thanks to Michael ‘Wink’ Sweetland, maker of the boxes, and to Maisie Rowe, designer in chief.

Please note by clicking on each image it can be viewed full size

[Box 13] Children

[Box 15] A difficult future.  We have left this empty… an acknowledgment that the future, with global warming and all the other ills that face us, looks precarious. Perhaps, looking back, there are things to be learnt about how to live more modestly, how to use what’s to hand, and find ways to get by.

A past/present, a past/ future ...

[Box 14] Under the sea