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Warmley, Bitton & Keynsham

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St George, Hanham Abbots

“St George, Hanham Abbots”, “Pearsall of Willsbridge” and other stories. (My birthday week, June 2024, Part 2)

After an afternoon spent in the sunny gardens, musing on the misadventures of Francis Creswicke, it was an unexpected bonus to find that St George, Hanham Abbots, which is attached to Hanham Court, was...
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The CookFamily, Killed in a Coal Pit

Killed in a Coal Pit – Tragedy at Golden Valley, Bitton 1882

On Sunday 26 March 1882, smoke was seen billowing from the top of the New Pit, in Golden Valley, Bitton. Abraham Cook, 55, the bailiff, insisted on going down the pit, against the better...
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The Life of Edwin Fray, 1833-

I am now starting on a short history of my early life of what I remember about the District of Keynsham where I worked and what I did, also some of the chief events...
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Alas, poor Pretty One

In the summer of 1788 Henry Watts sued William Luton in respect of Rights of Common on Rodway Hill, Mangotsfield, Gloucestershire. The court heard that in 1754 the estate was let to Luton’s father...
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Diverted by the Bristol “L” – a tale of the Keynsham Workhouse

My great great grandfather Henry FRAY was so afraid of being incarcerated in Keynsham Workhouse that he fatally cut his throat with a razor in 1900. “The Workhouse” cast a terrible shadow over the...
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Some Commonwealth marriages 1653-1660

During the English Civil War and Commonwealth period between 1653 – 1660, births, marriages and deaths were poorly kept and those recorded by civil officers, confusingly called Parish Registers, in place of the dispossessed...
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