THE COALHOUSE INN

A riverside pub since
1815.- Tommy and Herta O Neil ran it from for more than 21years floods and all!

  HARD WORK BUT
    ENJOYABLE!

People would come for "Chicken in the Basket," and Herta would prepare a fresh quarter of a
chicken herself.
We also did a "SalmonSupper,"
caught from the river.

I was a customer for many years then "21 years behind the bar.

at the Coal House Pub. It had a skittle alley and darts team, two rooms, off sales through a window out to the garden.
You would be inundated with people who would park on the front lawn-there were people everywhere during Cheltenham Races-
all talk was horses. Spit and Sawdust was on the floor. Our friends up the road would tell us when the waters were rising the floods were imminent.

Celia Davey.
resident in Apperley all her life.

Georgina Bunford

remembers life as a housemaid at Wightfield Manor
and a most horrific murder in 1938 at Haw Bridge.

2 local facts!

There used to be almshouses in Deerhurst - black and white timbered -they were pulled down in the 50s. Mrs Allen lived in a house on the banks of the river -it was called "Severnside." 

A Housemaid and a Murder!

Apperley 1934 - I started work at
Wightfield Manor rising at 6 0 clock in the morning and finishing at 6.30 at night - mornings were the dirty work cleaning -afternoons were more general - washing up!
"I was working in a hotel in Cheltenham -the next thing I knew was that Scotland Yard were here -
a murder had taken place at Haw Bridge and I had to look after the rooms of the detectives."

EMPIRE DAY!

HOW DID APPERLEY and DEERHURST CELEBRATE EMPIRE DAY?
Ann Parker  - remembers celebrating Empire Day at Apperley Court - May 25th.
Clive Hale - remembers Empire Day as a child - " We enjoyed a party at the village hall then we raced up to Apperley Court for games on the lawn."

WHAT WAS EMPIRE DAY?  -  The idea of this day would be to "remind children that they formed part of the British Empire and that they might think with others in lands across the sea ,what it meant to be the sons and daughters of such a glorious empire , and that the strength of the empire depended on them , and they must never forget it. Children would sing " Jerusalem," and "God Save the Queen,"
consider virtues such as  -  responsibility - sympathy - duty - self sacrifice and take pride in being part of the British Empire.
The 1st Empire Day was celebrated on May 24th 1902 - Queen Victoria`s birthday a year after she died but by the 1950s this day started to decline as countries started to celebrate their own identity.

TODAY IT`S COMMONWEATH DAY!

Today we celebrate Commonwealth Day on the 2nd Monday in March when each year the queen still sends a special message to the youth of the Empire via a radio broadcast to all the countries in the Commonwealth.