There was no mention of any accidents. Len did not remember the quarry or rift above Rose Wood but didn’t know how he had come to overlook them.

Percy Channon was employed by Mr Myatt some time after Len’s father, and towards the end Myatt let the mining run down. Len thought Percy had had some holes on the hill, but nothing much. There had been a company on Axbridge Hill, but it hadn’t lasted long. Not like Mr Myatt’s mining did, which was over a period of many years. In fact most of the holes on the hill were Myatt’s, and he did not mine anywhere else. He was a nice man good at locating ochre; he used to find it by digging shallow rectangular trenches.

All Mr Myatt’s ochre was despatched via Axbridge station. The company he supplied was West of England at Bristol, Len had not heard of them at Winford.

21a Interview with Phillip Glover - June 1980

Phillip’s work entailed helping Fred Curtis with the timbering. As Fred was an ex-coal miner from South Wales and was fully conversant with this type of work. It was on Fry’s Hill (ST 4341 5556) that Phillip first began working with Fred Curtis and Percy Channon. Charles King only mined when extra help was needed. Vic Channon never did any mining at all, being manager of the ochre mill.

The next site he worked at was the Rift above Rose Wood (ST 4271 5550) this was open cast mining. (I showed him the 25” map of Axbridge Hill with the rail marked at the Rift and Axbridge Ochre Cavern). He remembered the site as tip up drams and rails were used there. The ochre was bagged and transported by wagon and horse from the hill by Mr Green and taken to the ochre mill. The rail had been laid by the company at the mill and was already there when Philip started working. He didn’t know anything about the quarry next to the Rift.

22 Interview with Phillip Glover - June 1980

Regarding Mr Myatt, whom Phillip remembered when he was about 10, and lived in Axbridge. He was a strange man, but strange as he may have been, he knew everything there was to know about ochre and how to find it; he used to dig holes and strips. Phillip believed Mr Myatt was supplying West of England, as that was the name he had heard of.

25a Interview with Phyllis Croke - July 1980

She could recall the Rose Wood site (Margin note – ST 4243 5534) with the buckets coming down the hillside, and later during conversation she called this Myatts Quarry, where the farmer had worked.

Percy Channon worked without timbering, and tended to burrow everywhere. That was why Fred was employed, for safeties’ sake.

Fred, at one time had worked above Rose Wood, where there used to be a rail and drams, also in Myatt’s Quarry. (Some confusion here whether she’s referring to Rose Wood or the Quarry above it.)

26 Interview with Phyllis Croke - July 1980

Note – Len Tripp referred to Myatts Quarry where his father worked. This, in fact was Rose Wood, “where the buckets came down the hillside”. Myatt’s site 

Fred carpenter hauled from the quarry where there was no rail, and if there is no rail in the other quarry (Rift), perhaps the Channon’s took it up. (Used it elsewhere?)

19