Burnham-on-sea & Highbridge Through Time

Think of Burnham-on-Sea, and of course you immediately picture sun, sand and sea, and perhaps a donkey ride. This has been the case ever since Victorian times when day trippers and holidaymakers made their way to this pretty Somerset seaside resort. We all love a day at the beach, but we don't often think about how the seaside might have changed over the years. Burnham-on-Sea has gone through many changes over the last hundred years or so. Highbridge has also seen many changes during that time. In the early days it was what we would now call a transport hub. It had a main line railway, a branch line railway, a busy wharf, a bustling weekly market, and of course the main A38 Bristol road running through the town. Today just the main road and main line railway remain, the branch line into Burnham has gone, the market is no more, and the wharf was infilled many years ago.

David C. Bown was born locally in the village of Bawdrip in 1952 & has spent all his life in several villages surrounding Bridgwater. In 2003, in an early retirement situation, he decided to fill his spare time by embarking on a photographic project, to record digital photos of all the villages in Somerset. His other passion of family history research, which prompted the start of his old postcard collection, was the ideal accompaniment to getting the Somerset photography project under way.Tony Ethridge was born in Taunton in 1942 and spent most of his childhood days in the village of Middlezoy. Tony's interest in photography started in the early 1950s with a desire for developing and printing his own pictures. This passion for photography continued for many years and with the advancement of digital photography the desire to photograph as many towns and villages in Somerset became a possibility. With retirement, this possibility became a reality.