Clevedon - History

History

The name derives from the Old English, 'Cleve' meaning cleave or cleft and 'don' meaning hill,

Wain's Hill is an univallate Iron Age hill fort situated approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) south-west of Clevedon. The hillfort is defined by a steep, natural slope from the south and north with two ramparts to the east.

Clevedon was mentioned in the Domesday Book as being a holding of a tenant-in-chief by the name of Mathew of Mortaigne, and was listed at that time as having eight villagers, and ten smallholders. The parish of Clevedon was part of the Portbury Hundred.

The small rivers the Land Yeo and Middle Yeo supported at least two mills. The Tuck Mills lay in the fields south of Clevedon Court and were used for fulling cloth. The other mills were near Wain's Hill and probably date from the early 17th century.

During the Victorian era Clevedon became a popular seaside town, before that it had been an agricultural village. The Victorian craze for bathing in the sea was catered for in the late 19th century by saltwater baths adjacent to the pier (since demolished, though the foundations can still be seen), and bathing machines on the main beach.

Clevedon was also home to St Edith's children's home for almost 100 years until it closed in 1974. The building on Dial Hill is listed, and therefore the outside has changed little, but it now houses privately owned flats. The home was run by nuns from 'The Community of the Sisters of the Church' which is an international body of women within the Anglican Communion, living under the gospel values of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience.

The first large scale production of penicillin took place in the town. In 1938, Howard Florey was working at Lincoln College, Oxford University with Ernst Boris Chain and Norman Heatley, when he read Alexander Fleming's paper discussing the antibacterial effects of Penicillium notatum mould. He made arrangements for this to be grown in deep culture tanks at the Medical Research Council's Antibiotic Research Station in Clevedon, enabling mass production of this mould for the injections of the soldiers of World War II who suffered from infections.

Clevedon was served by a short branch line from the main railway at Yatton. It opened in 1847, six years after the main line itself, but closed in 1966. The site of the station is now Queen's Square, a shopping precinct. The town was the headquarters for another railway, the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway, which connected the three coastal towns in its name. It opened to Weston-super-Mare in 1897, was extended to Portishead ten years later, and closed in 1940. Its trains crossed the road in the town centre, known as The Triangle, preceded by a man with red and green flags.