Holford

The parish of Holford has a population of about 300 and most of the village is a Conservation Area. Agriculture and Tourism are the main features of the local economy with three hotels and five farms. Parts of the parish are within a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Red and roe deer can be seen in the combes. Numerous bird and insect species together with the heath land, plant communities contribute to the natural beauty of Holford.

The original village centre was in a narrow valley combe or hole, where the old coach road dipped down to a fordable stream, (HOLEFORD), close to the thatched cottages where the stream now goes under the road before falling into the Glen. The Huguenots (French Protestants) lived in Holford in the 16th century and left the ruins of the Silk Mill in the Glen, which had five water wheels. Tanning was an important industry in the 16th century and locals would have used the coppiced oak from the combes. Combe House Hotel, once a tannery, still has the largest iron water wheel in Somerset. Copper was mined in the 18th and 19th centuries at Dodington where the derelict engine houses can still be seen. The Castle of Comfort was a local hostelry and wages were collected at the Counting House, both on the A39.

William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were tenants of Alfoxton, now a hotel in 1798 and walked the hills and combes with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived in Nether Stowey. Virginia Woolf spent her honeymoon at the Plough in 1912 and returned for recuperation in 1914. The Church of St Mary the Virgin in Holford was dedicated in 1175 and in 1840 was mostly rebuilt. All Saints Church in Dodington also, dates from the 12th century. Dodington Hall is Elizabethan with an impressive hall and minstrels gallery.

Holford

A good centre for walking the Quantock Hills, set astride A39 Bridgewater to Minehead road. Alfoxton Park was the temporary home of the Wordsworths in 1797-8 who were visited regularly by Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he lived at Nether Stowey. On the edge of the Quantocks, surrounded by beautiful combes. Samuel Taylor Coleridgeand Wordsworth. Alfoxton House, where Wordsworth lived. Remains of Huguenot silk mill. Pub, tea shop, car park.

The Holford Dog Pound - see photo below for the caption

The caption reads - This ancient dog pound was given to the village of Holford in 1982 by the family of the late John Lancelot Brereton descendents of the St.Albyns owners of Alfoxton since the 15th century whose crest appears above

Contributed by: Fred Bingham