Medieval Bridgwater was a walled town with 4 gates. The South Gate (by Blake chip shop) was the main gate, The North Gate (end of Angel Crescent) was the Tradesman’s entrance, the East Gate (by Cobblestones) was the one a fairground elephant got stuck under and the West Gate-next to Bar Brunel-was the Party gate. And that’s the one we’re going to look at today!
Having a sense of history and where things actually happened to people is important. Bridgwater’s full of it. Walk past Homecastle House and look up at the Castle turrets where Lady Christabella Wyndham took a potshot at Oliver Cromwell and killed the bloke next to him or next time you’re at the bus station and looking at the turning circle by Asda imagine the Roundhead army storming the town ditch at that exact point and trapping the (mainly Welsh, Irish and Cornish) Royalist garrison in Eastover, as they struggled to negotiate the one way system, or stand outside the Old Market Pub on Penel Orlieu and imagine it’s July 2nd 1896, you’re a striking brick worker and you’re meant to be looking after the 2 scab brick carts that the pickets ‘commandeered’ then suddenly no less than 104 uniformed Police from all over Somerset appear from the High street with truncheons drawn. You’re not going to think “Ramblers looking good this year…” you’re going to sound the alert and get your mates out.
History
In 1896 Bridgwater had been the scene of a lengthy strike by the brickyard workers and it had reached fever pitch as the Tory government of Lord Salisbury started to use troops against strikers. The Gloucestershire regiment in full Zulu war period uniform was on its way and the entire Somerset Police force was in the town hall. They were sent to recover the scab brick carts. Forming up on the High Street at 9pm they baton charged the strikers who gathered to protect the brick carts. The strikers up tipped the carts outside the Old Market, by what was then the old cattle market (1875-1935), turning them into barricades and using the scab bricks and tiles as weapons to bombard the charging police, forced them into a hasty retreat back into the town hall. The Battle of Penel Orlieu was the precursor to a night of rioting. Besieged in the town hall for six hours alongside the 108 red coated soldiers the authorities finally snapped at 3am, Mayor Pollard read the riot act and the Gloucesters poured out of the town hall and charged the crowd clearing the streets and throwing many in the old jail (at that time the present day Engine Room). In 1986 I wrote a play about this and cast myself in the role of ‘comedy policeman’.
History
Today we can look at the Penel Orlieu and remember it as Medieval party town or Victorian class war central but what do we do with it next?
The Odeon building, opened in 1936, is an iconic entry point to Bridgwater from the West. As the west gate used to be.
This impressive two-storey structure was where traders passed through to the wide streets within where was the old Pig Cross .Cattle and pigs were traded in the street, sheep were sold outside the gate in West Street (outside the East gate in Monmouth street it was horses apparently). But this was Bridgwater’s West End and party town. The Three Tuns pub was on the site of the cinema from 1754 (a tun being a barrel) and stood amongst many pubs where the locals could fleece the farmers of their profits as well as their, er, ’fleece. The Old Market (Blue Boar), Duke of Wellington (Blake Arms), Market House (Valiant Soldier), the Masons Arms (Fighting Cocks) and others all meaning inevitably a festival developed on the location ‘The Pig Cross Revels’. This was held on Oak Apple Day (May 29th) where the publicans displayed oak boughs to commemorate King Charles II (who hid in one). The festival involved a greased pole with a leg of mutton on it (or sometimes a top hat). Whoever got to the top got the lamb or the hat. Depends how hungry they were, I guess. Another Pig Cross Revel was to tie young boys’ hands behind their backs and make them eat a bread roll covered in treacle. Whoever finished it first was, well, probably sick. And of course, since 1200 the West Gate has been the access point to the St Matthews Fair festivities. Where no-one’s ever got sick.
History
So, what next? The parade of attractive shops-now parade of empty shells, once the getting off point for busses that let you off so you wouldn’t miss an inch of a busy town centre, now look less sad but only because the colossally sad image of the former cinema towers above it.
You don’t have to ask far and wide to find it’s a disgrace. But plans are afoot. As we speak the Civic Society is considering listing the building as a Community Asset and the Town Council is using the legacy money provided by Sedgemoor to set up a feasibility study to find what actual uses there are for the place. Could it again be a 1000 seat entertainments complex? In 1936 it was a cinema. I saw the pantomime there once. I played on the stage with a live band in 1978 when they converted it to 2 small cinemas and a bingo hall. In truth it’s owned by a guy who seems to be land banking the place for a future profit. But it’s a disgrace and a waste of history and needs to be brought back into use and not simply left to rot.
Notes
Brick strike here
Siege of Bridgwater here
Special thanks to Miles Kerr Peterson of Bridgwater Heritage Group for assistance in research and here is a link to a new book he is promoting ‘Women of Bridgwater’ here