Wells, Market Place c.1950

Photo ref: W47324

I'm surprised there are so few memories of Wells. In the late '60's to '70's I lived in nearby Shepton Mallet as a schoolboy & later worked on a farm there. At weekends my elder brother, Colin, would arrive on the coach from Bournemouth, where he worked for the MoD. This was usually on a Friday night, & he would bring fish & chips - a great treat, picked up from the Shepton chippy. Saturday we would ...see more

During the Second World War there was an Italian prisoner of war camp at Penleigh, on the outskirts of Wells in Somerset. The Italian POWS were put out to work on local farms, and one of them was Gaetano Celestra, who had been a sculptor and mason before the war. When a stray enemy bomb fell at Beech Barrow and damaged a wall belonging to the farm where he was working, he rebuilt it and ...see more

I think the date at 1974 is correct but I would have been 6 then!! We owned all of what is Beechbarrow now and as a young man I had the run of the place! I hope the beech walk is still there, I built my first tree house in there! It was on the other side from the barn that Ron Chard had. Ron Chard was the farmer that used the paddocks we had. His son Tom is hopefully running it now, if Ron is not. Romulus & ...see more