1
Wilsbridge Valley marker
The valley was once home to some heavy industries before becoming a nature reserve. This substantial marker lends weight to the impression given to visitors.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 28 Jan 2016
0.03 miles
2
Siston Brook paths
The area around Willsbridge and the Siston Brook have lent themselves to a number of paths through the old industrial and natural environments. Willsbridge Mill Wildlife Trust looks after this popular place.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 28 Jan 2016
0.03 miles
3
Willsbridge Mill wildlife area
Once a thriving industrial place, featuring a slaughterhouse, tannery, milling, quarrying and coal-mining, it has lost almost all of its original employers. Having been taken into the care of the Avon Wildlife Trust it has been developed as a peaceful wooded valley and is home to many species of plants, insects and animals - including several rare examples. It is part of the Forest of Avon and visitors can see the sculpture trail and look around the restored mill.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 28 Jan 2016
0.03 miles
4
Willsbridge, Queens Head
On Bath Road; apparently closed, possibly because of renovation work.
Image: © Mike Faherty
Taken: 8 Oct 2010
0.04 miles
5
Old Milestone by the A431, Bath Road, Willsbridge, Oldland Parish
Metal plate attached to stone post by the A431, in parish of OLDLAND (SOUTH GLOUCESTERSHIRE District), Bath Road, Willsbridge, next to entrance No.63, against wall, on North East side of road. Bristol incised iron plate, erected by the Bristol turnpike trust in the 18th century.
Inscription reads:- : To / Bristol / 5 :
Grade II Listed. List Entry Number: 1116198
Milestone Society National ID: GL_BRBA05.
Image: © M Faherty
Taken: 8 Oct 2010
0.04 miles
6
Last orders for the Queen
This focal little pub in Willsbridge has a long history but time has now been called. Following a few years of dereliction, it will soon become a private residence - going back to what it originally started out as in the seventeenth century.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 28 Jan 2016
0.04 miles
7
The Queen's Head - a 350 year story
The village of Willsbridge dates from at least Anglo-Saxon times and the waters flowing through it would be the key to its growth. Various industries were based around it, including brewing. The present building began in the 1660s as a substantial private house, but has been altered and extended at times throughout. It was part of the larger estate that included the nearby Londonderry Farm, which is of the same date. The occupants began to brew ale using local water and gained a reputation in the vicinity for hospitality. Food and a warm fire were also offered and it would have been brought to the local authority's attention that it was doing so. No evidence exists of licensing until 1719, which permitted the kitchen to provide food for customers as well.
The pub also served as a Court Leet in the eighteenth century and also held parish administration sessions. Among other things, the Queen's Head was the meeting place for a Friendly Society and also where inquests were held following some of the frequent deaths that occurred in the local coal pits. As an effective national postal service started to take shape, Willsbridge played an important part and the Queen's Head became the first Receiving House outside Bristol to handle mail.
Being a public house in the nineteenth century usually entailed many unsavoury characters and incidents in this relatively poor and working-class part of the world. However, in the 1860s the Queen's Head retained a respectable and well-regarded reputation (as befitting a house where many church vestry meetings were discussed) and so was granted an Alehouse Licence - the landlords were held to account over their customers' behaviour and were permitted sell a range of alcoholic drinks, whereas less trusted inns could only sell weaker beers.
The pub saw many landlords through the years and welcomed many customers, including colliers, tanners, railwaymen and an R.A.F. party during the war who arrived to investigate the crash of a Spitfire on the hillside above. But the late twentieth century began to see the demise of the Queen's Head. It was badly affected by the terrible floods of July, 1968, when torrential rain caused the brook to be blocked by debris. The weight grew too much and a wall of water crashed into the pub, inundating it to a height of five feet of filthy swill. Despite that, the doors were opened again after a big clear-up.
As Willsbridge became a hamlet increasingly encroached by modern suburbia and its esteem diminished, modern changes of trends led to falling income, leading to rapid landlord and brewery changes. The pub also began to experience unruly customers and attracted the concerns of the police. Eventually, the Queen's Head closed in 2010 when the owners, The Pub Company, went into administration.
After standing empty for some time, the initial asking price of £195,000 was reduced to £155,000. However, the pub did not sell and so has been offered for conversion back into private residence - back to where it all began well over three hundred years ago.
The Queen's Head is a Grade II listed building.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 28 Jan 2016
0.04 miles
8
The scaffolding removed
The ancient Queen's Head pub has had a lot of work done on it but now the scaffolding has been taken down. It looks like the interior is still being sorted now.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 27 Mar 2017
0.04 miles
9
Modern Waymarker on the A431 Bath Road, Willsbridge
The waymarker marks the boundary of Bitton parish.
The inscription reads: 2000 : A.D. : Parish : of : BITTON
Milestone Society National ID: GL_BIT01
Image: © Jan Scrine
Taken: 19 Feb 2011
0.04 miles
10
Piles of wood
Some arrangements of lumber in Willsbridge Mill grounds.
Image: © Neil Owen
Taken: 27 Mar 2017
0.04 miles