Oldland Common Walk with Hatters' Trail - from Bitton Parish History Group

The Midland Railway line opened in 1869: the station opened in 1935. The line was closed in the Dr. Beeching cuts of 1966 and reopened in 1991 as a heritage line. Before the station was built it was necessary to signal by hand that you wanted the train to stop or to tell the guard.

starling

goldfinch

hoopoe

Established in 1844 as a ‘British School’, ‘Oldland Board Mixed School’. The girls from the school moved to new premises in 1956 to North Street. The school was then shared between the primary school and the boys’ secondary. In 1968 both schools were renamed Sir Bernard Lovell School for Boys and Girls. In 1971 the two schools were amalgamated.

The farmhouse is Grade II listed and has origins from the 16th or early 17th century. Henry Weston owned a part of Oldland Manor in 1511.

Stables for housing the pit ponies used at the Hole Lane pit and Bull Hall pit were later used for boot making and for rearing rabbits. The Hole Lane pit shaft is where the Edwardian houses are in the High Street (no.72 to 94)

The coalpit workshop (at the rear of no. 72 High Street) may also have been used for sorting coal was. It served the Hole Lane coal pit, sunk 1810-1820 at a depth of 200m.

The Dramway carried coal to the River Avon to the south and a line that brought stone from a quarry at Rodway Hill. It opened in sections between 1830 and 1834, and was in use until around 1866. 

The route of the Dramway made maximum use of the slope of the land down to the River Avon, Drams or carts loaded with coal (or stone) rolled slowly down the slope. Horses pulled the empty carts back up the track to the coal pits.

Built in 1811, known as Oldland Tabernacle. A yearly highlight for local churches was the Whit Monday Procession, starting at The Tabernacle.

The hall was built 1914 in the Arts and Crafts style. Now used for community use and the home of 54th Kingswood Scouts

National School and then St Anne’s 1838 to 1967 – built for 200 children, in 1837 at a cost of £650.

Siston Brook runs for 6 miles down to the river Avon, south of Bitton. The stream has in the past provided power for watermills and battery mills.

The present building commissioned by Rev H.T. Ellacombe was built 1829/30 at a cost of £1500. It replaced a medieval chapel with a saddleback tower demolished in 1827.
The graveyard holds Commonwealth War Graves, as well as the huge number of local children who died in the parish during the nineteenth century.

In Cowhorn Hill were the hatters’ cottages of Wm. Hopes (employed 3 men) and the Short family (employed 6 men in 1851). The Crown & Horseshoe was built c.1850. Popular with felt hat makers.

12 Hatter's Cottages and Crown & Horseshoe Pub

Numerous hat makers’ cottages along the west-hand side of West Street in the early 19C. Many belonged to the Short family.

Founded in 1873 as a Primitive Methodist Church, the original stones for the building came from Oldland Bottom. The church now combines the congregations of five former chapels.

Opened in 1914 to be an assembly room, a reading room or library. Here was the famous Oldland Flower Show. In some years the show attracted over eight thousand people till 2008.

Birthplace of the famous physicist and astronomer 1913-2012, marked with a Blue Plaque.

Oldland Common Walk

16 ECHOES

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The Echoes

1 Oldland Common Halt

2 Redfield Edge Primary

3 Weston Court Farm

4 Stables for Pit Ponies

5 Coalpit Workshop

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