Highbridge Hotel in the 1930s - with a car parked next to the grand entrance
AFTER a huge blaze gutted the former Highbridge Hotel last week, Weekly Memories takes a look back at the landmark in its glory years.
The 250-year-old building has stood as a hotel or inn may times since it was built, and two photographs, from the Highbridge History Project, capture the structure in the early part of the 20th Century.
Having originally been mapped in Huntspill, it changed parish boundaries after the Clyce was dug in 1806, altering the course of the River Brue to the other side of the building - putting the hotel in Highbridge.
The first picture, from around 1910, shows guests outside the grand entrance to Highbridge Inn.
Guests rooms feature prominently at the front of the hotel and to the side of the pillared front is what appears to be the inn's bar.
The date of the picture can be ascertained by looking at the early style of motorcar waiting outside, with a boy on a bicycle and one man standing next to the vehicle.
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The second photograph, taken in around 1930, shows the building from another angle.
The style of transport has moved on - and so has the design of the building - with most notable alteration being the change in name to the Highbridge Hotel.
Brick frames now surround the ground floor windows instead of wood, as the structure of the hotel takes a grander turn.
Finally the third picture shows another former Highbridge landmark, now destroyed.
The Anchor Inn was built close to Highbridge Wharf and became a popular stop off for workers at the docks.
But the inn was knocked down after the closure of the wharf and now makes up a private housing area.
Do you have any other memories or photographs of Highbridge Hotel? Maybe you have some old shots of other landmarks around Burnham and Highbridge?
To contact the Weekly News about any memories or to send in your own pictures, write to: Weekly Memories, Burnham and Highbridge Weekly News, Royal Clarence House, High Street, Bridgwater, Somerset, TA6 3AT, or e-mail: newsdesk@burnhamnews.co.uk.
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