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Andrew Addicott's Archive 
Looks quite new in this photo what date was it built?
It looks like the Seymour Arms to me.
In fact it says it on the bottom left of the pic. Late 1900s I guess. Well before WW1.
It is the Seymour Arms. My Grandparents ran this pub in early 1900’s
Are you related to Bill Day, Valerie? He lived in the gatekeepers lodge at Langford court. Bill was a pal of my Dad when Dad lived in Blagdon. I once played Bill at snooker on Jack Lyons’ table in the farmhouse at Rowbwrrow. I was a fairly talented lad at snooker but Bill thrashed me.
Rowberrow, that should read.
Hi Robert,
Yes that was my Uncle Bill, and my Dad was his brother Arthur and Dad used to play billiards, and I still have a his cups here that he won at the time. He also played cricket for Blagdon.
I remember visiting Uncle Bill at the gatekeepers Lodge many moons ago!
Dear Valerie,
That’s so fascinating, I’m glad I asked you now. I can remember just how smartly Bill was dressed…….light tweed jacket, cavalry twill trousers, brown shoes pastel shirt and Paisley pattern tie. There was a small craze at that time for Paisley ties…..cousin Jack Lyons and his pal David Legge used to wear them with some pride. We had a mini snooker tournament at School Farm, Rowberrow that day in summer while I was holidaying with my uncle Percy Lyons and aunt Edith (nee Sampson). I spent my school holidays there quite often. Do you , by any chance, know my sister, Rosemary Hodges (nee Sampson) who lives in Wrington these days?
Hi Robert, isn’t that great thinking back to how they were dressed..ah the good old days. We moved to Bristol from Blagdon when I was 3, and I now live in Portishead, so wouldn’t know anyone now, but I so remember my parents speaking of both Lyons and Sampson families. My Mother was Mary Green before she became Day, and I still visit my cousin Alan Green who lives in Burrington
I had many aunts/cousins living in Bristol but they’ve all either passed on or moved away. two of my cousins have emigrated, one to Oz, the other to Portugal. Both older than myself, so hope they are still with us (I’m 67, will be 68 in July). My dad’s brother, Edward Sampson, returned alive from WW1 but was reduced to almost a lump of jelly with shellshock after one of those shells landed alongside him in the trenches. He was wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life and lived in Fishponds hospital until he died in the early 60’s. Having been an employee of W.D. & H.O. Wills prior to being drafted into the army that very kind company paid all costs incurred at Fishponds also a weekly allowance of cash for uncle Ted, together with a tobacco allowance.
Two of my dad’s older brothers weren’t lucky enough to make it back from that war; they were Robert and George Sampson, both of whose names I was given in their memory. My third forename is Mendip, after a certain butcher in blagdon, Mendip Ball, for whom my dad worked, cleaning up the slaughterhose, etc., when a lad. Butcher Ball was kind, too, and paid my dad with copious amounts of meat to take home for the family. At one time there were eleven children in the family, all living in a 2-bed cottage on Bath Road just along from the Seymour Arms. It was a shop, newsagents & haircutting, run, after grandad’s death in 1933, by Cecil Sampson, brother of my dad, who was known to all as “Sammy”. My dad’s name was Albert, which I have passed on to one of my sons (24). This is the news business that Andrew Addicott , my cousin, took over, although the shop/cottage has been sold on. Andrew’s shop was located in a square opposite the Queen Adelaide.
Hello again, I will be 65 this year, so as I said I can’t remember much about Blagdon, although we still do visit the pubs . My Gran and Grandad Gilbert Thomas and Florence Minnie Day ran both the Queen Adelaide, and the Seymour Arms, and I can remember being told that they used to put up a lot of fishermen at times. My other Grandad Charlie Green was head herdsman to the Wills family estate there, and apparently breeders came from abroad to his funeral, before I was born.