Qualla: Watchet https://qualla.com/watchet en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Watchet https://qualla.com/watchet Watchet: Introduction https://qualla.com/watchet/ In the autumn of 1797 Samuel Taylor Coleridge walked down from St Decuman's Church on the hill above Watchet, looked across the harbour to the Bristol Channel, and began composing the lines that would become The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The ship in the poem - the one that takes the mariner to ice and sun and shipwreck and the curse of the dead albatross - sails out from a real harbour Coleridge could see from the headland, into a real sea that small Somerset craft had been crossing for a thousand years. A bronze figure of the mariner now stands on the quay, an albatross hanging from his neck. Watchet has had Vikings, iron-ore ships, paper mills, a lighthouse the colour of red rust, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is a small town with a long memory.

Read more: Watchet on Qualla

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/e/watchet-wp/gcje-watchet-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Watchet: Alfred's Burh https://qualla.com/watchet/ About half a mile west of the modern town, on a tapering spur of cliff eighty metres above the sea, are the remains of Daw's Castle - an Iron Age hill fort that Alfred the Great rebuilt around 878 AD as a burh, one of his chain of fortified strongpoints against Viking raids comin...

Read more: Watchet on Qualla

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/e/watchet-wp/gcje-watchet-alfreds-burh.mp3 0:06 2 full Watchet: Iron, Paper and the Blue Cliffs https://qualla.com/watchet/ Watchet had two trades that made it. From 1564 it imported salt and wine from France, exported wool and cloth, and gradually built up the harbour wall - Sir William Wyndham paid £1,000 in 1708 for a stronger pier. Then came iron. The Brendon Hills to the south held rich ore depos...

Read more: Watchet on Qualla

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/e/watchet-wp/gcje-watchet-iron-paper-and-the-blue-cliffs.mp3 0:06 3 full Watchet: Mariners and Monks https://qualla.com/watchet/ Saint Decuman, a Celtic missionary from Pembrokeshire, came across the Bristol Channel some time in the seventh century and was murdered at Watchet around 706 AD. The hill-top church above the town is dedicated to him; his bones were said to have been moved into it when the older...

Read more: Watchet on Qualla

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/e/watchet-wp/gcje-watchet-mariners-and-monks.mp3 0:06 4 full Watchet: A Quiet Marina https://qualla.com/watchet/ By the early 20th century the iron ore was gone and the mineral railway closed in 1898. The harbour kept working for the paper mill, then for general cargo, then less and less. In autumn 1923 the Cardiff Scrap and Salvage Company brought in HMS Fox, a 320-foot Astraea-class Royal...

Read more: Watchet on Qualla

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/j/e/watchet-wp/gcje-watchet-a-quiet-marina.mp3 0:06 5 full