In Glastonbury we walked through Market Square then up High Street to the Post Office next to the Wool Shop. St John's church was being renovated so we just took photos from outside and walked back to the Town Hall to wait for the bus to Wincanton.
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The driver of bus 77 to Yeoval told us we did not need to change at Ilchester, but could continue to Yeoval and change there to bus 58 to Wincanton. We travelled through Street town with the Clark shoe factory, and Somerton, just after we caught a glimpse of the old railway bridge which might have been a Brunel construction.
This would have been on the closed Somerset and Devon railway line.
There were some views over the valley, but mostly narrow rural roads lined with high hedges, just missing trucks and tractors on the other side. The lanes through the villages were also very narrow, houses with doors opening onto the footpath. There were several one-lane sections with traffic lights for road works. Finally, at 10:50am we arrived at Yeoval to discover that the bus 58 to Wincanton left at 10:45 and the next bus would be two hours later at 12:45. This was disappointing, as we would have arrived in Wincanton at 11:15am if we had changed buses in Ilchester. So we bought a replacement for Frédéric’s old bag, and ate takeaway sandwiches in the square before going back to the bus.
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| Wincanton town hall, Church Street on the right Photo by Diana Heins, 19 September 2019 |
We arrived at Wincanton after about 55 minutes. The Information Centre at the Town Hall was closed until 2pm, so we took photos of the Market Square and walked up High Street to find the top car park bus station. Back at the Information Centre the staff searched for photos of old schools while Terry collected maps of walking tours around town.
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Wincanton Cemetery (lower left), St Peter and Paul church (middle), old school house (red pin) |
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| Old School House, Church Street, Wincanton |
We walked down Church Street and found the Old School House. Jane Goodfellow ran a school in Church Street in 1841 and 1851 and by 1851 was also running the Berlin Wool depot. Could this be the school?
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| Church Street, Wincanton, towards Town Hall on right |
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Sts Peter and Paul church was attended by the Goodfellow family for baptisms and marriages. We did not realise that the front is more imposing than the back along the pathway through the church yard. The staff at the Information Centre had given us a list of Goodfellow names and plots in the Cemetery. Fortunately, they also gave us directions to go through the churchyard and across the zebra crossing.
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One of the walks showed us Cemetery Lane, so
we discovered the River Cale and walked through the park to the Cemetery.
On the way back we remarked at the embankment with new houses near the river. We read later that these houses were built on the old railway embankment.
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Terry and I searched for Goodfellows: I found
two graves, one Julia Goodfellow in 1956, but we could not find plot 318 with
Henry and Jane. Many were
indecipherable. We took photos of the graves and the cemetery. The weather was sunny and very warm 22 degrees, in shirt sleeves, with hat and sunglasses in the Cemetery.
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| High Street Wincanton. Quaker Meeting House on the right. Photo by Diana Heins 19 September 2019 |
On the way up High Street hill to the bus a man asked us if we had found the plots; he was one of the workers, who could have told us where they were.
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| Wincanton Town in 1840 |
By then it was too late and we explained that we were content walking where my ancestors would have walked in the town and taking photos of the old buildings in streets they would have known.
The 666 bus left at 3:45pm and travelled a circuitous route around Bruton, collected private school pupils, narrowly avoided trucks, gave way at several red light one-lane sections, could not fit between cars on one street, arrived 12 minutes late at Castle Cary railway station and sped along straight sections. At Street town we alighted at Crispin Hall and crossed the road to catch the 367 double-deck bus to Glastonbury.
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