Until the railways arrived, Weston-super-Mare was a town without a history. From a little fishing village with just a handful of houses, Weston grew into a major seaside resort, and this happened rapidly in just under one hundred years. After a period of decline, it has recreated itself, successfully, as a holiday destination for the twenty-first century and as one of Somerset's major towns. 

Romans and seventeenth-century smugglers, television comedians and top-selling writers, and even the wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi play a part in the story of Weston's past, as does the amazing diversity of architecture. 

A walk along the town's seafront encompasses Victorian enterprise, Edwardian splendour, the commercial enterprise of the new-Elizabethans - and the remarkable flood defences of the twenty-first century.

The older photograph of Claremont Crescent can be dated precisely. A placard outside the corner shop announces ‘Ascot Centenary Gold Cup Stolen’. 

This particularly notorious theft took place on 18 June 1907.  

Perched between Claremont Crescent, Madeira Road and Kewstoke Road, this shops still sells daily newspapers

The author's introduction

The story of Weston-super-Mare is but a brief chapter in the long history of England.  When Francis Knight wrote The Seaboard of Mendip he called Weston ‘a town without a history’. At the time he was writing, at the beginning of the 20^th century, there were men and women of Knight’s acquaintance who could still remember the local fishermen who had worked from Weston bay and who kept donkeys to haul their catch along the beach.

When his great antiquarian history of Somerset was published in 1791, the Revd John Collinson described this coastline of the fishermen as ‘a flat sandy strand two miles in length to Anchor-head, at the west end of Worle-hill, which is another vast rocky eminence, and a remarkable object by sea and land’.

Where Weston-super-Mare now thrives, there was little except sand, dunes and the sea.

My grandfather was Henry Butt, but not the Henry Butt who was Weston’s first mayor.  Grandfather did bump into his namesake once. The exact dialogue has been lost in the mists of time but followed the lines of:  

“Do you know who I am, my man?” 
“No?” 
“I am Henry Butt.” 
“Well, so am I. Pleased to meet you.” 

At which point my grandfather shook the Mayor’s hand, and they parted, one with slightly less wind in his sails.

My great-grandfather on my mother’s side, the Revd Alexander John Woodforde served briefly as a curate at the Parish Church of St John, at which time he lived at Chittagong Villa in Shrubbery Walk.  He was later vicar of Locking.  He painted a number of watercolours of Locking Church and vicarage which are treasured family possessions, but as yet no paintings by him of Weston have come to light.

So we need to draw upon photography for a record of Weston in the past, including the commercial photographers of the Victorian and Edwardian age, and the gifted amateur photographers of later decades when lightweight cameras and relatively inexpensive film came onto the market.  

The images in this volume record both change and the fact that some buildings and locations seem never to change.  

Weston-super-Mare Through Time - now on sale - published on 28 September 2011


Over ninety archive images of Weston from Victorian and Edwardian times, including remarkable photographs of the damage caused by the great storm of 1981

Each of these old images is linked to a photograph of the same location taken this summer

The book will be available in all good bookshops in the area at £14.99 and from online booksellers 

You can pre-order by quoting ISBN: 978-1445603858

For further details, additional images from the book, or to talk directly with the author
please email or ring 07982 845112