Property

* New 7th September 2024: Athelney Mud Huts (And More) *

* New 14th December 2024: An Assortment of Dwellings *

Listed Buildings

There are 21 listed buildings (or parts of buildings) in the village. Apart from the Parish Church (Grade I) all are listed as Grade II:
Parish Church; Baptist Church - Former Stables; Unknown Monument in Churchyard; Crossway Farmhouse; Churley Farmhouse; Sturts Farmhouse; Woodhouse Farmhouse; Dyke's Farmhouse; Frog Lane Farmhouse; Slough Farmhouse; Barn 30m west of Slough Farmhouse; The Laurels, Meare Green; Jessamine House/Long Cottage; Curload Farmhouse; Woodhill Farmhouse; Poplars Farmhouse, Meare Green; Lane End Farmhouse; Withy Boiler, Lovells Farm; Barrington Monument; Stocks in the Churchyard

Details of some can be found HERE

Another Listed Building, not in the Parish, but very much a part of the village scene is the Burton Pynsent Monument at the top of Red Hill. Details HERE

Style & Materials

Woodhouse Farm

Withy Boiler, Lovells Farm

There is no vernacular style that can be assigned to the village buildings. Most of the houses in the centre of the village are estate type, built later than 1970. The oldest cottages and houses are cob or stone, and some still have their original thatched roof, but many have been replaced with tile. Later dwellings, built in Bridgwater '21-holer' brick, are also mainly roofed in clay tiles, either pantile or double Roman. There are few slate roofs in the village. Several 19th century cottages were built on the edges of, or as encroachments on, the common lands of the village.

The oldest farmhouses are generally scattered around the parish. These are interspersed with the houses of withy growers and processors, who would haul the willow back from the moors. One boiler chimney is still visible.

The early history of one house, The Mardy, can be seen HERE

The Moors

A large area of the village is barely above sea level, but has been drained over the centuries, with the rivers banked to help prevent flooding. Read more HERE

Aerial Photos - Click HERE

MudHuts

The House Of Broken Bricks - September 2024

As you drive from the village through Athelney to the level crossing you will see the cottages on the left perched on the banks of the Tone. The article below describes how many of them came about, originating as mud huts built by squatters. But these cottages have also recently released an accomplished author. Have you read Fee Williams' first novel, 'The House of Broken Bricks'? The broken bricks refer to the building material that the boatmen used to build their homes along the river - rejects that could not be sold to builders. But the novel captures the life along the banks of the Tone that is still a small world away from what is happening 'up in Stoke'. An excellent read. See the Guardian review HERE and then go and buy it (also available on Kindle see HERE).

The Athelney Mud Huts

The Tone, between Turkey and Stanmoor Bridge, is not a river to fall in love with at first sight. It is not like other Somerset rivers. Not the rushing waters of the East Lyn, or the gentle bubbling of the Barle. Here, the Tone is a drain, and unless a spring tide is up it has steep muddy banks. But if you live there it is ‘The River’. It is part of your everyday life. You cannot escape it. Also, for the early settlers of the river bank it was about the only possible means of owning your own home.

Between the river and the road was the ‘Ward-wall’, a bank built under a government award, in order to hold back the waters of the Tone from the lower land in Stanmoor. The landowners of the parish had responsibility for different sections of the wall and had to make any necessary repairs at their own expense. It was not surprising, therefore, that they turned a blind eye to individuals and families who built cottages on top of the bank, and then took on the maintenace of their section. These would sometimes have started life as simple mud huts, thatched with sedge from the rhynes (drainage ditches). The men were often boatmen, so a few steps would be cut in the bank to access the water. In time, brick walls were built around the house, a hedge was put to the road. A piece of ground the other side of the road was acquired for a garden, and fruit trees were planted. The holding was then passed to the next generation.

Figure 2 shows the area around Athelney Bridge in 1840. The occupiers of the properties were:

1295 James Mitchell

1296 Mathias Palmer

1297 Robert Wollon

1298 John Sharman

1299a, 1300 & 1301

John House (Tailor)

1303 James Kearle

1304 Philip Russell

1305 Mary Smith

1306a A Brewer

1307 Thomas Smith

1308 William Palmer

Walter Raymond, the Somerset Victorian traveller, wrote about his visit to the Athelney river bank in his book, ‘Idler out of Doors’, 1901. He recalled meeting a woman who lived in one of the cottages and she related the story of the building: “ ’twere gramfer what first builded a house here, sure ‘nough. You zee ‘twere like this. They had a-begun to stop it by gramfer’s time like. If you did but put up a rabbit hutch on fresh groun’, they did come an’ pull it down avore ‘t were up like. But gramfer he were too many vor ‘em. The wold man, he builded a little house o’ the river-mud, there on the bit his brother had a-tookt in avore. There ‘pon a spring-tide one night, he heaved un up ‘pon apple poles, an’ brought un over river ‘pon the barge, an’ clapped un down right there-right, an’ lighted up his vire avore light, an’ lived in un vor years, zo he did.” The woman then explained to Walter Raymond that the family built a brick wall a foot or two outside the mud hut and cleared out the inside, so that when she married into the family she and her husband were owners of a brick cottage. Also, because it was on the Ward-wall, they paid no taxes. The only problem was the damp. As the woman said: “But lauk! ‘tis zo wet.”

Another Victorian, Henry Laver F.S.A, visited Athelney from 1846 to 1850. He gave a paper to the Somerset Archaeological & Natural History Society in 1909 describing what he remembered of the Athelney mud huts. He noted that the people who lived in the huts were mostly employed making clay pipes. “They had a healthy appearance, and dressed as comfortably and as tidily as any other working-people in the district.” He likened the huts to those that might have been found in Bronze Age Britain, and went on to describe their structure:

“Their mode of erection was this. First a hole was dug in the ground of the size of the proposed hut, and the soil thrown out in this operation was piled up around the excavation, but a portion of the space set aside for the proposed hut had only the top spit or so removed, thus leaving around the space of the excavation a raised border to form a sitting or sleeping bank in the finished hut, the rest of the space being removed a foot or two deeper. There was a space, at one end usually, left on the same level as as the sleeping or sitting banks, and this formed the hearth.

“The sides of the hut were raised by a very strong and rough wattle or basket-work and daubed with clay on the outside. A space was left for a door, but none for a window. The chimney, being broad and low, let in a sufficiency of light, when for any reason, it was necessary to close the door in the day-time.”

EricDwellings

'An Assortment of Dwellings'

From Eric Hembrow's Book 'A Winter Harvest'

Thanks to Sue Hembrow for letting us use the material

“By no stretch of the imagination can Stoke be desribed as a pretty village, in fact it is downright untidy,” is how Eric Hembrow begins his chapter entitled ‘An Assortment of Dwellings’ in his 1990 book, ‘Winter Harvest’. He takes us back to a period before the uniform houses of the new estates, "where the practical needs of a working village determined the nature of the cottages and houses, not to mention the unbelievable number of sheds scattered around, often serving no apparent purpose, once again built of varying materials. The Condition of the majority ranging from unsafe to derelict.”

A school tableau outside the new houses in Willey Road. The only tenants allowed to rent were agricultural workers. Withy workers did not qualify for the new council houses.

He continues: “The first families who moved into the houses along Willey Road found it very strange that gates and doors were all the same. On one occasion Bert Chedzoy went in and sat by the fire. A little later Herb Garland came in, took off his boots and was off up the stairs, when he noticed Bert. After a somewhat heated discussion (they had both been to the pub) it was agreed that it was Bert who was in the wrong house.” The bricks for these houses were one of the last cargoes that came up the Parrett and Tone from Bridgwater, to be landed at Athelney and carted up to Stoke.

Eric also talks in his book about some of the older farmhouses, more sunstantial and better built thatn the cottages scattered about the village lanes. “One is Dykes Farm. Early deeds give the spelling as Dights [A previous owner had been one Robert Dight]. Built in 1636, it is on high ground with a commanding view of the moorland to the north and west. My grandparents farmed there for many years. Their seven children were born and raised there, except for Ernest, who was drowned in the farmhouse pond."

The Hembrows at Dykes Farm

"My Uncle Harold, the youngest, is quite sure that as a young boy he remembers ap# part circle of very large stones on the hill overlooking Stanmoor. He recalls his father using several horses with chains to move each stone, even after hours of digging around the base. One of these stones was used as the cornerstone of the wagon house, however the evidence is now buried under concrete. The question remains, did we once have a miniature Avebury in Stoke?"

The porch at the front door is built of timber salvaged from the church belfry during resoration work. Inside, many alterations have taken place, during which a very small room was uncovered.Was this once a hiding place or perhaps a prophet’s chamber? Also opened up was a great fireplace with adjoining oven. In the roof is a small compartment entered through a low doorway. Two little windows can be seen from inside, but now thatched over. Could they have been lookouts? Much of course is purely conjecture. Whatever the truth, the heavy nail studded doors and the iron bars at the windows show that Dykes was certainly capable of being defended.