Lower Whitelands by Andy Mitchell

 This is where we lived for 25 years. Old miners' dwellings. My Great Grandfather brought up his family there in the early 1900s. We lived in the bottom rank which originally had a railway line running along.

When miners lived there the gardens were immaculate not an inch wasted. Some would keep pigs. Growing food was a matter of survival especially during strikes like the one of 100 years ago. I have created a label Whitelands.

In the Garden Van Morrison 1986

 This song reminds me of when we lived at Whitelands. All the people bar me would love their gardens and would talk about gardening at the drop of the hat. They also liked Van Morrison and we had a trip to see him in Bristol.

The fields are always wet with rain
After a summer shower when I saw you standin'
Standin' in the garden
In the garden wet with rain

Lower Whitelands

 

Ralph and Leroy 2006

 Whitelands in the distance.

Whitelands at night by Richard Venn

 

Walking The Colliers Way - Radstock to Shoscombe & Single Hill

 This is fairly new. It is good. Worth doing if you fancy a walk but I would also suggest you detour to Whitelands and finish up at the Apple Tree Inn at Shoscombe for a pint of scrumpy maybe even a meal (they do lush food). Along the way you pass the site of Lower Writhlington colliery and several pillboxes. Also traces of a tramway to Braysdown colliery. Our old stomping ground. 

Lower Whitelands by Jon Price and the Meekers

He was our next door neighbour for a number of years and he passed away recently sadly. Posted in tribute to a good neighbour.

He was in a really good post punk band the Meekers. Check out their Bandcamp. 

Whitelands 14 years ago

 

Whitelands 2010. Pic by Susan.

 

Snowman

 Two of our kids at Whitelands Radstock in the 2000s. 

Animals & Men 'Dragonfly' 2010

 Film made by Susan of Whitelands, Radstock and Waterloo Rd the day after the snowfall in the winter of 2010.

NB We realise there are no Dragonflies around at this time of year but the song is chosen because of Boltonites radstockensis - a huge Dragonfly fossil found in 1912 in the coal tip at Tyning, Radstock. Radstock stills yields fossils dug up by miners decades ago. Incidentally a lot of this is the site of the old Somerset and Dorset railway line, now a cycle path.

Lower Whitelands Radstock

 We lived here for 25 years. 

Upper Whitelands

 These were demolished. A lot of the more humble cottages were got rid of. They put prefab houses there for a while to house miners new to the area.

13 years ago

 Pic of our old dog Leroy out for a walk in the snow. Whitelands in the background.

Joseph Henry Ricketts Mitchard and Martha (née Lockyer) 1916

 This was found by my sister Anne. She is a tireless researcher of family history. This blew me away.  It is a photo of my Great Grandfather. A hewer of coal. As were his sons and his father and their fathers.  At the time of the 1901 census he was living at 46 Lower Whitelands. This photo is dated 1916 on the reverse. 

Biography details

Lower Whitelands c1900. 

Lower Whitelands

 This is where we used to live depicted in a tourist leaflet. It is considerably sanitised omitting the industrial estate and sewage works which both dominate the landscape. But we lived there 25 years. It went downhill when they built the cycle track. You would think cyclists don't have an impact but it is the legion of uncontrolled dogs that cause the trouble. Just a thought if you are analysing the impact of a cycle track.

Ralph, Susan and Leroy 12 years ago

 

Photo by Red. In front of our old house, a miner's cottage, Lower Whitelands.

Photos of Lower Whitelands

 These pics are from about 10 years ago with our old dog Leroy a Staffie cross. The houses are from about 1830 and were miners' cottages. We lived there for 25 years. 

The 'batches' are spoil heaps which have been landscaped and trees planted 

Party time at Lower Whitelands Radstock 1992

 When we moved in to this rank of miner's cottages it was lovely. It got slowly worse as it became more gentrified. This is my son's second birthday. He has his own son now. You didn't hand out invites - word just got around if you were having a party and that was the same for grown up parties.  All those kids we knew well for many years. In the background is Braysdown batch. A batch is a mining spoil heap that has been grown over with trees. Local phenomenon. Good place to walk the dog. 

Here is Lower Writhlington Batch with Whitelands in the distance. Here you can see them growing trees on the batch. It's an old photograph. It's like woodlands now. Tyning batches in the distance.

John of the Sword

I thought I would write about this video as it's been pretty popular and quite a few people have said they've seen it and it made Video of the Week on Maximum Rock and Roll.

It was when we were living at Lower Whitelands - 2 enormous ranks of miner's cottages that has a communal feel to it. The idea was to have a 'Fun Day' and meetings were held to plan it. We decided to throw our eggs in and participate and so suggested a musical element. Our next door neighbour's kids had a band and were keen to play so we went to Frome and borrowed the Bad Detectives PA system. Before the bands Bos did some deejaying and held a spray paint graffiti thing for the older kids. Rachel did face-painting. It was well attended and the boys band whose name I forget played a set, Then it started to rain. Well drizzle. I had promised the Bad Detectives that if it rained we'd go indoors so we did. The rain wasn't so hard that everyone went home but they went down into the gardens and lit fires. We blasted off to about 6 people one of which James Bona had been given our camcorder with instructions to film a few songs. We filmed the lads before us but they chose not to put the footage up. While we were playing one of our neighbours came up and said 'They can hear every word you're singing'; and Sue said 'Good'. We weren't appreciated. I think we didn't provide something wanky enough for the drippy parents but we got a good video out of it so a win. It was fun meeting people who had seen it - whether in the States or somewhere like that.