Crofts End, Bristol
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Crofts End (also known as Clay Hill) is a suburb of Bristol.
It is an industrialised area, with many small Victorian houses, built when this area was a coal mining community.
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[edit] Churches
Crofts End Church was established in 1895 by George Brown, as a Christian work for miner's children in The Freestone Rank, Whitehall Road, it became known as The Miner's Mission. It is now part of the local and much wider community but still very much a family church. The current pastor is Andrew Yelland.[1]
The church was built on a site bounded by market gardens, a brick works and Deep Pit Colliery. When The Beaufort Arms, then known as The Beatem and Wackem and now called The Wackum Inn was the place where most miners spent their hard earned wages! Hence the need for a children's work in that community.
Another local chuch was Clay Hill Chapel which was demolished when the industrial estates were built.
[edit] Industry
Over many years, the Market Gardens became housing, White's Brick Works became Somers Wood Yard (now an industrial pallet site) - where many older people will remember going as children to collect a sack or trolley full of firewood - and Deep Pit Colliery became industrial estates. When Deep Pit closed, men were having to walk underground as far as Frenchay, to reach the coal face!
[edit] Housing
Crofts End House, located at the junction of Plummer's Hill and Whitehall Avenue, still exists, but no longer as a single dwelling. It has been refurbished and is now part of a housing association development.
Currently the area is undergoing more change as the majority of 'prefabs' (built by American Service-men as post war housing) in the locality have been demolished. These had large gardens surrounding each property and so current planning applications will replace these with many more mixed style, more cost effective housing.
The old, redundant Civil Defence building on the junction of Crofts End Road and Brook Road was demolished and housing association flats were built on the site, now named "Craftes Court"
[edit] References
- ^ Crofts End Church. Retrieved on October 25, 2006.
