MEMBERS of Wellington 41 Club recently visited The Blake Museum (also known as the Bridgwater Museum) in Bridgwater. The museum was founded in 1926 in the house believed to be the birthplace of Robert Blake (1598–1657), Oliver Cromwell's General at Sea, and covers the local history and archaeology of the Bridgwater region.

There are three floors of rooms, each room displaying a particular facet of Bridgwater's long history as a centre of trade and shipping, with artefacts of transportation and maritime heritage. There is an Archaeology Room, displaying objects from early settlers in the Bridgwater area, including the Greylake Skulls, dated to 8400 BC, a restored Roman mosaic from Spaxton and a hoard of coins found on King's Sedgemoor Drain.

There are rooms exhibiting agricultural machinery and tools, Victorian clothing, brick, tile and textile items, and a Monmouth Rebellion archive. As well as a diorama of the Battle of Sedgemoor, the Battle gallery covers conflicts from the time of King Alfred, the English Civil War, through to the 20th century. The museum also holds an extensive photographic collection and houses the archive of the work of the local artist John Chubb (1746–1818).

As one might expect from the name of the museum, one room is given over to the memory of Robert Blake with displays of materials relating to his life, including his sea chest. Oliver Cromwell appointed him General at Sea in 1649 as the title “Admiral” was not used in the Parliamentary navy. The reason Blake is almost unheard of today is that after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 Parliamentary achievements were discredited and major Parliamentary leaders were wiped from the historical record.

Blake is now widely regarded as 'The Father of the Royal Navy'; the man credited with establishing England's naval dominance in Europe, which continued until the 20th century. He created the first standard set of rules and regulations for the Navy and overhauled outdated tactics. Admiral Lord Nelson is known to have acknowledged Blake as a naval hero.

The Blake Museum works closely with the Bridgwater Heritage Group to create an educational resource for the town, of value not only for local historians, but also for schools and colleges.

Wellington 41 Club is indebted to the volunteers from the Friends of Blake Museum who kindly opened the museum for our evening visit and were on hand to answer our questions and explain the stories behind many of the artefacts. By way of thanks, the club was pleased to make a donation to the museum.

Before leaving, the opportunity was taken for Barry Brown, the outgoing 41 Club chairman to make the formal handover of chairmanship to Mike Perry who will be Wellington 41 Club chairman until April 2027.

Wellington 41 Club welcomes all past and present members of the Round Table movement who have reached the age of 41. We meet on the third Friday evening of each month, usually at a local public house or restaurant, for a meal and to hear an interesting speaker. Visits to local places of interest take place in the summer months.

For more information, please contact the Club Secretary, Ken Atherton, by email at [email protected]

THIRTY-four very excited gardeners boarded a coach provided by Upton Coaches and capably driven by Ian, and made our way to the Yeo Valley Organic Gardens in Blagdon, North Somerset on May 16.

The garden belongs to Tim and Sarah Mead, with Tim’s parents Roger and Mary creating the Yeo Valley yogurt range which is carried on to this day by the family. A herd of Friesian cows formed a welcoming committee as we turned into the driveway. We were given a welcome talk by the very knowledgeable Jake, whose talk was his first. He described how the gardens are always evolving and how at present they had just installed a rubbish border; this consists of 100 tons of crushed rubble, and they are monitoring the border to see how much and what will grow in the poor conditions, to create as much biodiversity as possible.

Although Jake did say with a smile, that normally being organic was all about fantastic soil quality, due to our changing climate and biodiversity, they always look at ways to reuse and recycle, and their compost heaps are amazing.

After the talk members were free to roam around at leisure, with Jake being on hand to answer any questions. Most of us it has to be said, made our way to the Garden Café for a welcome and fortifying cuppa and cake or light lunch. A very good selection of foods and drinks were organic and you could really taste the difference, and it was reasonably priced with very friendly and helpful staff. One quirky item was found in the loos which had a trowel as a loo roll holder! Once fed and watered, we ventured out into the garden and what a treat it was. It is looked after by only four full-time gardeners and this in itself is a feat.

The garden is divided up into several ‘Garden Rooms’ and are sheltered by hedging sometimes with three tiers of different mixed hedge. This creates a microclimate and shelters the garden.

There were vistas of the Mendip Hills and Blagdon Lake, and some hedges had windows cut in them so you could glimpse another room as you walked round. Several benches of reclaimed timber and broken garden tools which made up the backs of the seats, were scatted around and everywhere you looked there were fun and quirky ornaments or ironwork. My favourite was iron gates with ironwork depicting forks, spades, saw, scythe, hoe, wheelbarrow and watering can.

There were raised beds with a veggie garden, a bronze garden which formally was the pasture of the donkeys from Weston-super-Mare beach which used to graze there over the winter months. Other rooms were the trough garden, red and lime beds, big grass bed, woodland walk, spring meadow, the gravel garden and of course the rubbish bed. A blossom avenue and yurt with a look out bridge and a ha-ha all created a magical and superb habitat and bio-diverse environment. Constant bird noise and one of our members seeing ‘boxing’ hares in the meadow, cemented this garden as being a vital and beautiful environment.

In the Birch Garden, there must have been more than 50 silver birch trees with the distinctive silver bark. There was some underplanting of foxgloves, white again which was truly magical. There are many colour schemes throughout the garden and all the plants and vegetables, including herbaceous perennials were in fantastic condition, and they also bought back plants from their Chelsea garden which tells you something about the standard of the plants.

As they are organic, they are very conscious not to disturb the soil and try to improve and nurture it by top dressing with composts and mulches. It is definitely a hands-off approach to gardening. As we came to the end of the visit to this incredible garden, we made some purchases in the garden’s shop and made our way back to the coach having had a very enjoyable, if a little damp at times, wonderful day out.

Our next get-together is another garden visit a little closer to home in Kingston St Mary on Thursday, June 11. We return to the Parish Room in Sampford Arundel on July 9 for a talk on exotic plants.

Contact Sue or Nick Matthews on 01823 672662 for more information about our club.

MEMBERS of Wellington and District Townswomen’s Guild gathered for their annual general meeting at Lodge Close Hall on Monday, May 11.

Chairman Joyce Jones opened proceedings and the minutes of last year’s AGM were read by the secretary, Jenny Banton, and approved.

Treasurer, Jenny Vickery, presented her financial report for the year and the accounts were circulated for all members present to look at.

The chairman, vice-chairman, secretary, treasurer and all other committee members were re-elected.

A discussion took place regarding the need for a new constitution. As the Townswomen’s Guild no longer has a national overseeing body with a universal constitution, each local Guild may now write its own. It was therefore agreed that when the committee next meets they will draft a constitution, to be put to members at the June meeting.

A raffle and refreshments followed, and then the secretary read out the minutes of last month’s meeting.

The chairman raised the possibility of a minibus trip in August and asked members for suggestions of possible destinations, to be discussed at June’s meeting, which will be held at Lodge Close Hall at 2.30 pm on Monday, June 8.

The Guild always welcomes potential new members, so do come along to a meeting as a visitor if you are thinking of joining this friendly group.