St Saviour’s Chapel and House, Old Taunton Road

St Saviour’s House was named after the medieval chapel of St Saviour’s (sometimes St Savery, or Salvery). Both are now gone, and both poorly documented, but we can get a glimpse of both from fragments of evidence. No photographs seem to survive of the house. Saint Saviour is another name for Jesus Christ.

St Saviour’s Chapel

In the 1540s the antiquarian Leland mentions ‘Entering into Bridgwater I passed by a Chapelle of S. Salvior standing on the Ripe of the Haven.’ He also says ‘The Chapelle of S. Salviour at the South side withoute the Town was buildid in hominum memoria [living memory] by a Merchaunt of Bridgewater cawllid William Poel or Pole.

‘Ripe’ meant at that time the edge of a river or stream. ‘Haven’ probably means estuary, and possibly refers to way the Durleigh brook leading to the Parrett. The chapel is not mentioned by a previous visitor to Bridgwater, William Worcestre, which suggests the chapel was built sometime between 1485 and 1530. It was served daily by one of the Friars and was possibly for the use of travellers arriving from the south (Lawrence, History of Bridgewater, 56).

In the late 1530s the English Reformation made the chapel redundant. Given it had only recently been built, it was presumably repurposed, although by who and what is unclear. In 1581 it seems to have been used as a depot for four boat loads of stone for the mending of the causeway (ie Old Taunton Road).

There are mentions of the chapel in various documents through the eighteenth century. One set locates a tenement near St Saviour’s near the South Gate and the Almshouse – this property is probably now 2 Old Taunton Road (SRO DD/X/CYS/1). The chapel was still standing in the 1770s (SRO D/B/bw/1971), when there is mention of repairing the sluices at the chapel. Again this would indicate that it was somewhere along the Durleigh Brook, and presumably upstream of the Town Mill (which would need sluices to control the flow of water).

The 1735 plan of Bridgwater seems to show a large oblong adjoining the Durleigh Brook and South Gate – the only building in the area we might expect the chapel to have been. The 1735 map in itself is not especially reliable though, but this seems to be supported by later map evidence.

That building from the 1735 map does appear on the 1810s Town Plan and what is presumably the core of the new St Saviour’s House next to it. We might assume therefore that the building close to Taunton Road might #represent the old chapel.

The 1810 Town Plan – the possible chapel building marked in red, St Saviour’s House in blue.

By 1824 the possible chapel rectangle seems to have been demolished. A possible context for this may have been the 1822 when the turnpike road (Old Taunton Road) was improved and the nearby South Gate was demolished for road widening (Dunning, VCH). By this time the garden of the house had been extended as a large triangle, which may been been compensation for the loss.

Whatever this building was, its foundations were found in 1992, when workmen discovered two parallel walls one metre under the pavement, ten metres apart, made of red Wembdon sandstone and one metre thick (Chris Sidaway, PSANHS, 135, 1992, p. 172). Given the thickness of the walls, this building presumably survived the Civil Wars of the 1640s, when the South Gate was fortified, by being turned into a blockhouse.

If this building was St Saviour’s Chapel, and survived as late as the 1810s or 1820s, it may have provided, through architectural salvage, the arch in the gardens of Binford House, later Blake Gardens (usually assumed to be from St Mary’s):

The Arch in Blake Gardens – possibly salvage from a window of St Saviour’s?

St Saviour’s House

The exact date of St Saviour’s House is unclear, but it seems to have been built by the time of the 1810s Town Plan above. Only a small section of the house survives, which can be seen from Blake Street, and this was probably an extension to an older house.

St Saviour's House
Part of St Saviour’s House survives, being incorporated into Blake Hall. The pointed windows are ‘Regency Gothic’ and possibly date to about the 1800s. The changes in brick colour clearly show several phases of alteration – the dark brown bricks being the oldest (late 18th century into early 19th). The roof heightening here may date to 1926, while the more uniform orange bricks on the right date to the 1940s/1950s.

As can be seen from the aerial photograph from 1932 (below) this portion seems to be an extension to an older U-shaped house, although both incorporating the pointed gothic windows. The extension seems to have been added by the time of the 1854 map below.

1887 OS 25″ map with the surviving portion plotted in red.

The pointed windows seen on the older portion of the house may be a very early example of the Gothic Revival, inspired by Strawberry Hill. These architectural gothic nods may have been made in reference to the old chapel (if it was the building closest to the road), and that chapel may have been incorporated as part of the house.

It is unclear who built St Saviour’s House. The 1810 map shows the house had a tight rectangular garden and did not incorporate the nearby field. The 1840s Tithe Apportionment survey mentions the adjoining field to the east and south of the property as ‘Field 196 in Bridgwater parish (Name=‘River Ground’ Cultivation=‘Pasture’ Owner=‘Symes Edward Shephers and others’ Occupier=‘Gabriel Stone Poole’ Acreage=‘2a 3r 0p’ Rentcharge=‘£0/2/1’ )’. It is pleasing to see the Poles/Pooles still living nearby! By the 1824 map (see above) the garden had been extended south to form a large triangle.

By the time of the 1854 Town Plan a new building near the Town Mill seems to have been added (most likely part of the mill complex), and part of the triangular garden carved off for redevelopment. A large rectangular extension to the garden had been added on the river side.

1854 Town Plan showing the plot carved out of the south part of the garden, but also the extension to the east.

In 1861 the house seems to have been occupied by Robert Russell Sewell, a General Practitioner from Essex, and his assistant William Harnell from Ireland. Both were aged 42 and had two servants Jane Bosley and Gilbert Francis Morley. The next property in the street was the Free Reading Room, which is possibly 2 Old Taunton Road.

In 1883 a Frederick Farmer lived in St Saviour’s (Kelly’s Directory). Born in 1824 in Suffolk, he was a surgeon in the Bridgwater Infirmary, and a Justice of the Peace. He took his own life on 22 September 1885. Looking back at the 1881 census we find Frederick, his wife Emma and they were joined by Fanny Maxwell ‘a black immigrant lunatic’ and Elizabeth Denman, Fanny’s attendant. There also lived there a domestic servant, Hannah Hardwell.

We see the house and grounds in greater detail on the 1887 OS 25″ Map:

St Saviour’s on the 1887 OS 25″ Town Plan.

By the time of the 1904 OS 25″ Map, much of the gardens had been redeveloped into St Saviour’s Avenue, and a chunk incorporated into Blake Gardens.

1904 25″ OS map. By this time St Saviour’s Avenue had been built, along with St Saviour’s Hall (1892) and Swimming Baths. The Swimming Baths were built by Rev. Scholes of the Roman Catholic congregation, he had purchased the field next to St Saviour’s House explicitly for the purpose, and the avenue was laid out at the same time (Wells Journal, 12 June 1890)

Skating Rink

In 1910 there was talk of building a roller skating rink at St Saviour’s House by the Bouchier Brothers, although they faced stern opposition from the neighbours, including the vicar of Holy Trinity Church across the road (Wells Journal, 25 August 1910). However, they seem to have got their way, as the Skating Rink in Old Taunton Road was being advertised in 1914. This was probably when the low large brick building was added to St Saviour’s House, which runs along St Saviour’s Avenue.

During the First World War this skating rink was turned over to the Red Cross as a temporary hospital. The local firm of Wills Engineers installed heating into the building (Western Daily Press, 21 August 1914).

Blake Hall

After the war the skating rink was used for manufacturing. In 1926, however, the site was redeveloped and turned into the Blake Hall. This was to be the headquarters of the Bridgwater Divisional Liberal Association and could hold 1000 people. Offices were included for the staff of the Liberal Association, presumably in the old house. The opening ceremony was held in June 1926, when the hall was opened by Sir Donald MacLean (Western Daily Press, 19 June 1926). In the following years the hall would be a popular venue for concerts and dances.

On the the 1930 OS map, we see the old St Saviour’s house incorporated into the new Blake Hall.

In 1932 we get a glimpse of the buildings of Blake Hall when aerial photographs were taken of the town.

Detail from Britain from Above EPW039923, 1932. The church hall of St Saviour’s avenue can be seen on the bottom centre left. Above this is the Blake Hall, then behind this is St Saviour’s House – the lower U-shaped portion on the left and the higher extension on the right (which survives today). The lower portion to its left seems to have been replaced in later aerial photographs.

Only three years later we see the new frontage erected along Taunton Road, which still stands today:

Britain from Above EPW048429, 1935.

By 1953 the site had been redeveloped again, with a large square block built over a large portion of the old house. Further work needs to be done on the history of Blake Hall, but it is by this time old St Saviour’s House had been mostly redeveloped and forgotten.

EAW051940 
EAW051173. Sometime after this picture was taken the facade along Taunton Road has been lowered.

MKP 28 September 2024