The date – 02/05/1996. The destinations – Wookey Hole in Avon / Somerset. Somewhere up there. A bit of a road trip this, passing Stonehenge n the A303, you can see people closer to the stones than we are able in the 21st Century. Past there ad Chicklade, who remembers a half-decent Little Chef? It’s something else now, but being on the wrong side of the road, we rarely stopped there. There’s another one further along on the right side, this too was rarely visited. I think that’s a Starbucks now. Breakfast – Happy Eater going up the hill past the A303 Sparkford roundabout. The Happy Eater reverted to a Little Chef before sold off as a private cafe and latterly an American Diner. All this is being bypassed by the Sparkford-Podimore dualling.
Back on the main road and turning off the A303 we go through Martock and its wonderful array of honeycomb stone houses. Keen viewers of this channel will recall we went to Martock earlier in the year so Dad could purchase wood at Yandles’ revered woodyard, which ‘road trip’ took up most of the video. Such decadence. Dad didn’t remember the turn-off, we others did. Such controversy! We even pulled into the woodyard to prove it. Somerton was up next – a lovely place where I’d move to tomorrow given the chance (but don’t tell the wife). Out of town we’re following a blooming lorry which we pass before entering Compton Dunton heading for Glastonbury and Street, the latter looking forlorn with much in the way of derelict factories. As it was back in 1996. Wells comes next before reaching Wookey Hole Caves and Paper Mill.
Our guide through the caves was knowledgeable and entertaining, managing little light shows to make the most of the many wonderful formations caused by millennia of water through the caves, namely the stalactites and stalagmites. Apologies that my little camcorder couldn’t make more of the low light but when fitted lightshows played and our guide turned his torch on, more becomes visible. And on to the Paper Mill which we thought “shall we? Shan’t we?” before deciding to enter as then we’d can say we’ve done it and be unlikely ever to do so again. No – it was far more interesting than originally thought. Leaving there, we drove through Priddy and down Cheddar Gorge into the village itself. It hasn’t changed much.
Weston-Super-Mare, parking near the seafront, we ate lunch in the car (we wusses found it to be cool and windy outside). I could be wrong, but this coastal resort actually looked better on this video than during last year’s visit, both being cool and overcast days by the way. A picturesque toll road took us through Kewstoke and trying to spot two B&B’s we enjoyed happy stays in some years previously as a family. Three nights that was IIRC, where the hosts had retired, he from a stressful job which was going to do him in if he didn’t give it up. That extended his happy years and he played jokes and made fun as long as we were there. Happy days. The last night they were full, so we were shipped off to a friend of theirs B&B (Mrs. Gorton – I remember that!) up the road.
Back to this video then, and departing Kewstoje we stopped where a horse in the field looked interested that we were there, some kind of show horse we reckoned. Heading home we passed through the Chew Valley area south of Bristol and a multitude of pretty little settlements before making Westbury’s White Horse for one final gasp of battery before it ran out.
I used snippets of this to recreate the feel of the trip down the A303 to Somerset for opening scenes in a WECC Cricket Tour video (WECC – THE West End Cricket Club which is now sadly defunct). The video in question is “Somerset 1994”, available on the WECC YouTube channel.