Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#1
Without looking on your PC,and the map,can you tell me,(1) Have you ever heard of a very small parish called Wookey Hall.?(2) Where is it.?(3) And what is there if anything.?(4) And what did it have in common with Dover,up till a few years ago.?
Guest 643- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,321
#2
Wookey Hole is in Somerset. It's famous for it's caves and the Wookey Hole witch who inhabits them. It has a 19th century paper mill and the famous Wookey Hole bears are made there. There is also the valley of the dinosaurs which is a good walk, if a bit creepy!
Anything else you want to know?
There's always a little truth behind every "Just kidding", a little emotion behind every "I don't care" and a little pain behind every "I'm ok".
#3
and as we found that if it rains heavy the caves can fill quite quickly but they do give you your money back if you cant get in them
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
#4
morning alan.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#5
All the above is right thank you. It is a lovely place to take your family all the year round,and the hotel there is very good and does not cost a lot to stay there about £50 for a family room.and their food is good to.And unlike Dover they did have a paper mill and agood one,which years ago made the UK paper money.
The same as Dover when the mill closed down with it went many jobs,but they did not just lieing therelike Dover,they have turned it in to a part shop come fun fair,and must say they have done a great job,
(1) This is what it is now.
(2)Old Penny Arcade.
(3) All the fun of the seaside under cover with rides.
(4)Crazy mirrors all+ you can get lost in the Magical Mirror Maze.
(5)The Clown Town and Model Village.
(6) The Wookey Hole Cave Museum and Exhibition Hall.
(7) You can try your hand at hand made paper making.
(8)They have the biggest Adventure Golf Coures
(9)They have a very big Play Zone for the younger ones .
(10) They can fight the Pirates off from a ship,
(11) They have the prehistory Dinosaur Valley and the fairy Garden.
(12)They even have a Big top clown circus and magic circus.
(13) Video Presentations.
(14) Woodland walks.with Picnic Areas.
(15) The River Gardens water fall.
(16) And on top off that you have the great caves they have light showes down them. Also down there you will see where they store all the cave aged Cheese,it is stored there to mature for over a year befor going on to be sold at all big stores around the UK.
It is open all the year round full with Events, like Holloween.Santaland. They do Ghost Tours.
Apart from the Caves the Dover mill site could have done the same with its own Hotel in the grounds of the mill.
Wookey Hole is agreat place to go even if you have no family.
Sue Nicholas- Location: river
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 6,025
#6
Interesting post .A question.Who owns it and how was it funded?
Guest 715- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 2,438
#7
Seem to remember it is owned by a Circus family? Chipperfields maybe ?
Audere est facere.
#8
A new book revealing the secrets of life in the big top celebrates the achievements of circus legend and Wookey Hole Caves owner, Gerry Cottle.
Mr Cottle's rise to fame is told in Circus Mania - The Ultimate Book For Anyone Who Dreamed Of Running Away With The Circus, by Douglas McPherson.
Mr Cottle, a stockbroker's son, turned his back on suburban life and ran away to join the circus at 15.
He said: "I saw my first circus when I was eight and decided there and then I wanted to be a big circus boss... I wanted excitement and to see the world."
He landed a job clearing up after the elephants and quickly moved on to being the back end of a pantomime horse but it was not long before he took to the ring as Scats the Clown. He married a girl from a famous circus family, the Fossetts, and by the time he reached 25 he was ready to team up with fellow runaway Brian Austen and strike out on his own.
They and their wives performed nearly all the acts but Mr Cottle and Mr Austen got a big break when their circus was featured on TV documentary The Philpott Files and pictured on the cover of the Radio Times as the "smallest greatest show on earth". Mr Cottle became widely known through the BBC1 variety show, Seaside Special, broadcast on Saturday evenings from his big top.
In circus slang Mr Cottle was a josser - an outsider - but he became the first British showman to take a circus to Hong Kong and the Middle East. By the 1990s he was running the Chinese State Circus, Moscow State Circus and The Circus of Horrors, Britain's three biggest travelling shows.
He retired in 2003 and bought Wookey Hole Caves, one of Somerset's oldest tourist attractions, and went on to set up the Wookey Hole Circus School for local children, seemingly proof that "you can shake the sawdust off your shoes but you can never shake it out of your heart".
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
#9
Thank you for that,it made good reading,and as I said a great place to go to.
