Combe Down


Combe Down is a village on the outskirts of Bath, England, in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority area, within the ceremonial county of Somerset.
Combe Down village consists predominantly of 18th- and 19th-century Bath stone-built villas, terraces and workers' cottages; the post World War II Foxhill estate of former and present council housing; a range of Georgian, Victorian and 20th-century properties along both sides of North Road and Bradford Road; and the 21st-century Mulberry Park development on the site of former Ministry of Defence offices.

Location

Combe Down sits on a ridge above Bath, approximately to the south of the city centre. The village is adjoined to the north by large areas of natural woodland with public footpaths offering views overlooking the city. Parts of these woods are owned and managed by Bath & Northeast Somerset Council, but the majority are owned and managed by the National Trust; the Bath Skyline trail runs north of the woods. To the south of the village are views of the Midford Valley.

Toponymy

"Combe" or "coombe" is a word meaning a steep-sided valley derived from Old English "cumb" and possibly from the same Brythonic source as the Welsh cwm. "Down" comes from the Old English "dūn" or "dūne", shortened from adūne ‘downward’, from the phrase of dūne ‘off the hill’.

Governance

Formerly part of the parish of Monkton Combe, Combe Down was incorporated into the city of Bath in the 1950s.
There have been a number of boundary changes and local government changes affecting Combe Down.
Combe Down has many local amenities including schools, churches, shops, local societies and pubs. It has two allotment sites: 64 plots on a privately owned site at Church Road, established in 1895, and ten plots at Foxhill owned by the parish council.
The local state primary school is Combe Down CEVC Primary School, housed partly in a log cabin imported from Finland. The nearest state secondary school is Ralph Allen School. The independent Monkton Combe School is in the nearby village of Monkton Combe while its prep school, pre-prep and nursery are all in Combe Down village. Prior Park College, an independent Catholic secondary school, is adjacent to the village.
The centre of the village has a range of shops and small businesses. The post office closed in 2006 despite public opposition and the nearest post office branch is now inside a grocery store in a row of shops on the Bradford Road.
There is an Anglican church and a non-conformist chapel. A Roman Catholic church is on the edge of the village, adjacent to the Foxhill estate.
Combe Down has two rugby union clubs and a cricket club, a children's nursery, a doctors' surgery and a dentist as well as an active Cub and Scout Group with its own Scouts' Hut. There are several societies, including an active local history group, a branch of the Women's Institute and two art groups.
There is a private hospital, Bath Clinic on Claverton Down Road, based at Longwood House, the former home of the Mallet family of Mallet Antiques. Margaret Mary Mallett, who lived at Longwood House, and her daughters Margaret Elizabeth Mallett and Barbara Penelope Mallett Lock donated of land on Combe Down and Claverton Down including Rainbow Wood farm, Klondyke Copse, Fairy Wood and Bushey Norwood to the National Trust. Opposite the hospital is a 4-star hotel and health club, Combe Grove Manor, with of gardens and woodland.
A public open space incorporates the village war memorial and a play area with children's play equipment. Three parcels of land make up the Firs Field open space, two of which are under the control of the local Council. The deeds state that the Firs Field is intended for the recreation of the residents of Combe Down in perpetuity. Firs Field was restored to meadowland status following the successful completion of the stone mine stabilisation works in 2010. A residents' group exists to ensure the appropriate representation of local residents' interests with regard to the management of the field. In 2015 Firs Field was granted "commemorative" status and designated an official Fields in Trust "Centenary Field".
In July 2014, the Ralph Allen CornerStone was opened. It is run by a charity, the Combe Down Stone Legacy Trust, as a sustainable building and educational centre. The Combe Down Heritage Society has museum-standard secure archiving space in the basement where it catalogues and stores unique local heritage material, and which can be accessed by researchers.
There are daily bus services to the village from Bath city centre. The privately owned Bath 'circular tour' bus passes the outskirts of the village and down Ralph Allen Drive on its route to the city centre. The Bath Circular bus passes through Combe Down and caters for students travelling to the University of Bath and Bath Spa University.

History

It is believed that a Roman villa was situated on the southern slopes of the village somewhere below Belmont Road, the site of which was discovered in the 1850s. An inscription on a stone recovered from the area reads "PRO SALVTE IMP CES M AVR ANTONINI PII FELICIS INVICTI AVG NAEVIVS AVG LIB ADIVT PROC PRINCIPIA RVINA OPRESS A SOLO RESTITVIT". This can be translated as: "For the health of Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius Felix Invictus Augustus, Naevius the imperial freedman, helped to restore from its foundations the procurator's headquarters which had broken down in ruins." It is thought to date from AD 212–222. Many finds from the site were taken to the Somerset County Museum at Taunton.
John Leland, the 16th century antiquarian and traveller, noted some stone mining activity in Combe Down as he passed by.
By 1700, small open stone quarries were operating on Combe Down. Most of the land and the quarries were purchased by Ralph Allen in 1726 but there was as yet little habitation.
In 1791, John Collinson describes Combe Down as still undeveloped:
From their 1924 history of Combe Down, D. Lee Pitcairn and Rev. Alfred Richardson state that:
The population increased from 1,600 in 1841, to 2,372 in 1901, and was 5,419 in 2011.

Stone mines and quarries

Combe Down village sits above an area of redundant 18th and 19th century stone quarries, many of which were owned and developed by Ralph Allen in the 1720s. These quarries were fully infilled and stabilised during a central government-funded project which took place between 2005 and 2010. Over 40 quarry sites have been identified on Combe Down. Only one working quarry remains on the edge of the village, located off Shaft Road. This supplies high quality Bath stone to the city and across the UK.
John Leland, the 16th century antiquarian and traveller, wrote in the 1500s that he approached Bath from Midford "...And about a Mile farther I can to a Village and passd over a Ston Bridge where ranne a litle broke there & they caullid Midford-Water..2 good Miles al by Mountayne and Quarre and litle wood in syte..." which could be a reference to quarrying around Horsecombe Vale, between Midford and Combe Down.
The mines at Combe Down were Oolitic limestone mines. Stone was extracted by the "room and pillar" method, by which chambers were mined out, leaving pillars of stone to support the roof. The Bath stone used for many of the buildings in Bath – as well as for other important buildings around the United Kingdom including Buckingham Palace – was mined from beneath and around Combe Down. Many of these workings were once owned by the eighteenth century entrepreneur Ralph Allen.
The mines were closed in the 19th century but building work continued above ground, with some roads and houses eventually resting on only a thin crust – in places between only one and two metres deep – above large underground cavities with inadequate support.
A five-year central government-funded project began in late 2005 to stabilise and fill the abandoned mine workings. Bath and North East Somerset Council approved the planning application in June 2003 and approximately 760 village properties were included within its boundary. All mine workings inside the boundary of the planning application were stabilised using foam concrete to satisfy a 100-year design life while ensuring archaeologically important areas and bat habitats were protected. In some hydrologically sensitive areas, "stowing" – an infill with limestone aggregate – was undertaken. Archaeologically important areas were filled with sand and new bat caves and tunnels were created.
The £154.6million grant for the works came from the Land Stabilisation Programme which was set up by the government in 1999 to deal with "abandoned non-coal mine workings which are likely to collapse and threaten life and property" and managed by English Partnerships, the national regeneration agency. The total amount included £22.7m which had already been used for emergency stabilisation work before the approval of the main project. Several public art projects celebrated the completion of the stabilisation works.