Gallery 2017

send your photos to nailseapeople@gmail.com

Nailsea in the rain

December 2017

Nailsea in the snow

December 2017

Nailsea winter whiteout

Nailsea resident Ali Kuleli ventured out in the early hours to capture his wonderful wintry images.
Others poked their cameras out of their bedroom windows or waited until morning to take pictures of the snow.
Ali and his wife have been living in the town for just over two years and photography is his hobby.
He said: “We love the location and surroundings of Nailsea.
“On the night of the photos of the snowfall I was woken up by phone call at 1.30am.
“I looked out the window and knew this would be the perfect photo shoot.
“With my wife and our husky snow dog Tia we all went out to enjoy the quiet and stillness of Nailsea high street.”
For those who like the technical details Ali set his Nikon d7100 to manual mode and using a Sigma17-50mm lens he adjusted the shutter speed to suit the image.
You can ‘like’ Ali’s images on his Facebook page Cloud9photographer.

It is funny to think there are primary aged children in Nailsea who have never seen snow.
Some have new sledges bought four or five years ago stored in garden sheds waiting…
But I fear they will have to wait longer because the covering this year which arrived late one December night had nearly all gone by the next day.

There were some hairy stories of late night driving home and the road at Brockley Combe was closed for many hours by a fallen tree.

There were some delays at Bristol Airport while planes queued for de-icing and the National Trust property at Tyntesfield closed for safety reasons for a couple of days.

Although a few made snowmen the iced statues melted quicker than you could say Raymond Briggs.

Land Yeo Valley

December 2017

Nailsea Santa's Run

December 2017

Nailsea Community Christmas Fair

NCCF has its own page in the archives HERE

December 2017

Tithe Barn Nailsea Christmas fair

Nailsea market November 2017

TANGERINE DREAMER: Photographer Clare Garland was so excited by this sunrise that she rushed outside and stood in the middle of Shaftsbury Road to take the shot. It was 7.40am on Saturday, November 18, and the keen amateur was still dressed in her pyjamas! It is perfect shot and thank you Clare for sharing with Nailsea People

Remembrance Day November 11th

has a page of its own click HERE

Children in Need

Royal Oak garage a work in progress

Royal Oak garage

Progress from start to finish - perhaps. August 2017 most of the original walls came down. It was more than a year ago multi-million plans to develop the old garage next to the Royal Oak pub were unveiled to Nailsea Town Council. The slide show below is taken earlier this year. The garage is excluded from scheduling under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.

Royal Oak garage

Progress during the summer holidays August 2017 although most of the original walls came down. It is all a work in progess but the final photograph in this slide show is of how it is going to look. It was more than a year ago multi-million plans to develop the old garage next to the Royal Oak pub were unveiled at a Nailsea Town Council. Scroll down to read more on the Breaking News page about the development...we will update as and when...wonder how much the properties will sell for?

Royal Oak garage

December Photo: Bob Deacon

Royal Oak garage

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2017 at Royal Oak garage site

Work began in earnest this year at Royal Oak garage site.

It was more than a year ago that multi-million plans to develop the old garage next to the Royal Oak pub were unveiled at a Nailsea Town Council meeting.

The plan was not to demolish the building but convert it into 10 two-storey three bed homes with studio and office units underneath using the old walls as the shell.

From a new garage with cone-shaped car sales showroom to an indoor market with cafe and museum many residential and commercial schemes, for the site dubbed ‘gateway to Nailsea’, have been put forward over the years.

In the 1860s more than 500 people attended village concerts in the building that once housed French kilns and gas-fired furnaces for the Glassworks and in the 1980s The Wurzels packed out the place for a 1st Nailsea Scouts fundraising gig.

Last year Hobbs Properties put the freehold of the huge disused stone built ‘shed’ and surrounding land up for sale with a price tag of £250,000.

North Somerset house builders Rollo Homes who are responsible for developing the old furniture shop Challicoms at Hill Road, Clevedon, decided to take on the ambitious project.

Rollo Homes directors Shaun Thomas, of Chelvey, and Paul O’Brien, of Wraxall, are the brains behind the development which will sit between the newly transformed Teletubbies-style park at the end of the High Street and the Royal Oak public house.

Planning and development consultant Kit Stokes, of Aspect360, told the council that the Royal Oak garage was ‘an important but not beautiful’ building which would be retained and act as a ‘sleeve’ for the new development.

The asbestos sheet roof would be replaced by a new slate roof and the project would include 20 car parking spaces, he said.

The architect is O’Leary Goss came up with the mixed development idea.

But councillors voiced concern about chemical contamination of the land caused by its industrial past.

One said that substances including cyanide and asbestos had been removed from the parkland next door.

Mr Stokes told councillors: “The intention is to retain the floor slab and to have minimal excavation to protect the archaeological resources that are in the ground.

“There will need to be a remediation strategy to address any contamination which may mean capping the car park area.”Builders aren’t going to dig the dirt and plop homes on top, said Mr Stokes reassuringly at the time.

The garage is excluded from scheduling under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 but the ground beneath is included as 2008 excavations revealed remains from the glassworks and alkali chemical works.

Bonfire night at Nailsea 2017

Photos courtesy of Stuart Burgess and Sarah Marshall. Facebook video of firework finale courtesy of Richard Billows - thank you everyone

The annual fundraising bonfire night fireworks at Nailsea and Backwell Rugby Club were a great success with crowds braving the cold to watch a fantastic display.

However, for pet lovers the evening wasn't such a success.

The golden Labrador (or is it a retriever?) pictured was scared witless and was seen running about at the Grove.

The poor dog was eventually caught near Backwell Motors and found to be chipped when taken to Golden Valley vets.

There are reports of lots more frightened animals as fireworks all over the town were very loud this year.

Well done Backwell people who caught and looked after this dog prior to it being reunited with its owners.

M&Co open at Somerset Square

Strongest man @thegym Nailsea

Nailsea ladies in the pink October 2017

Now in its 10th year the annual Pink Ladies Day at Nailsea & Backwell Rugby Club on Saturday was another sell-out.

This year it was a Bond-girls Live And Let Live theme for the £15 'tea' party in aid of BUST with an evening disco.

Since it was formed in 1991 by Frenchay Hospital patients to buy £20,000 an ultra-sound scanner BUST has raised more than £1 million.

In its first decade Nailsea Pink Ladies Day has raised approximately £20,000 towards this amount.

It was started by three pioneering Nailsea women - Annabel Kew, Sue Morris and Rachel Sullivan - who launched the first Pink Ladies dinner at Nailsea & Backwell Rugby Club back in 2008.

Every year since nearly 100 ladies dressed in either outrageous or high end fashion outfits have marked the pink-themed occasion with a variety of stunts from a mass balloon launch to a schools challenge match with the boys wearing pink rugby shirts.

One year the All Pinks committee did a New Zealand traditional ancestral Haka and at other times ladies have arrived in style in a pink stretch Hummer limousine.

Drinking their pink cocktails and enjoying a pink buffet is par for the course while the 2017 entertainment was a Casino Royale drag queen.

Nailsea People is realible informed that 2017 was a raucous event with all the male waiters and bar staff going topless by the end of the evening.

The photos are not in chronlogical order and have come from numerous sources but mostly Jeanette Cook, Amanda Burgess, Vikki Jones and Hannah Waghorn for which we are very grateful.

From behind lens of talented Nailsea lady

Nailsea shop John Brown 60th anniversary

John Brown is a real diamond

In a few weeks’ time the legendary John Brown who is still working in his Nailsea High Street shop as a watch repairer will celebrate his 92nd birthday.

But before then family, friends and his customers joined to toast the 60th anniversary of the opening of hardware store and share a special celebration cake.

Mr Brown was born on October 26, 1925, in Clevedon and has spent most of his working life in the shop he opened with his late wife Alice in 1957.

This was on the eve of the then village becoming a 'new' town with massive housing developments and the population growing from 3,000 to nearly 20,000.

When Mr and Mrs Brown opened the builder’s merchants/ironmongers they moved into the flat above the shop with daughter Maggie, then aged seven.

Mrs Brown worked alongside her husband to build a business where people mattered and in her own quiet, kind way she made an indelible mark on Nailsea community.

Since then the shop, affectionately known as an Aladdin’s cave has expanded and developed, but the ethos which was begun by the John and Alice Brown to serve others continues to this day.

Alice, a former Sunday choir teacher and founder of the URC junior choir sadly died in January 2011 but Mr Brown carried on helped by Maggie and her husband Joe Fordham.

And Mr Brown's popularly was confirmed when he won a Local Legend poll on the original Nailsea People website and as part of his prize he won a professional photo-shoot to become a ’local pinup’.

And as a local celebrity he was chosen by Nailsea Town Council to declare open the new public park on the site of the old glassworks across the road from the shop.

These days it is son-in-law Joe in charge of the day-to-day running of the shop but most afternoons Mr Brown can be found at the back in the shop, chatting to the customers and 'doing' the watches.