Local Interest, Local Walks

Howard Burton    [Publisher:  Thunderbolt Books  2021]    Softback    56 pages

A slim but attractively produced book that tells the intriguing story of Bath's own wartime airfield. Built on a pre-historic site of some significance, happily recorded before destruction, Charmy Down was difficult to fly in and out of. More pilots lives were lost in training than in combat, aircraft from Charmydown failed to engage raiders during the Bath Blitz and the whole story has an air of pathos about it. After the war the site was used for an abortive Cold War radar project and more cheerfully as social housing ahead of a programme of council house building on the eastern side of Bath. Today it makes for a good destination for a walk with remnants of its wartime use still clearly visible. The whole story is well recounted here, together with a good number of fascinating photographs and illustrations.

Peter Bradshaw, Larry Cunningham and Sue Fraser    [Publisher:  Radstock Museum  2018]    Softback    54 pages

A handy and attractively produced small book of walks around Radstock, ranging in distance from one to nine miles long. Well illustrated with photographs from the past and the present, the book forms a good introduction and guide to the former coal mines and railways around the town.

Simon Winchester    [Publisher:  Penguin  2002]    Photograph    338 pages

Simon Winchester's acclaimed story of William "Strata" Smith, one time surveyor of the Somerset Coal Canal and "Father of British Geology". A lot of the story takes place south of Bath and is linked with his work for the canal and also investigations in the local coalfield, and the story even references the "Titfield Thunderbolt" which was filmed on the railway built along the Coal Canal. A fascinating, informative and very readable account of an extraordinary life.