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Clevedon (, ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, England. It recorded a parish population of 21,281 in the United Kingdom Census 2011, estimated at 21,442 in 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2021. It lies along the Severn Estuary, among small hills that include Church Hill, Wain's Hill (topped by the remains of an Iron Age hill fort), Dial Hill, Strawberry Hill, Castle Hill, Hangstone Hill and Court Hill, a Site of Special Scientific Interest with overlaid Pleistocene deposits. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Clevedon grew in the Victorian era as a seaside resort.
Clevedon Pier, which opened in 1869, is one of the earliest surviving examples of a Victorian pier. On 17 October 1970, two outward spans collapsed. The pier and its buildings were restored and reopened on 27 May 1989.
Clevedon Marine Lake is a tidal pool holding 15,000 sq m of sea water, refreshed with salt water on spring tides. It is a safe place to play, swim and boat. It is popular with open water swimmers and an important part of Clevedon's community. It is run by a charity called Marlens, run by volunteers, who clean and maintain the lake.
Wain's Hill is an univallate Iron Age hill fort situated approximately south-west of Clevedon. The hill fort is defined by a steep, natural slope from the south and north with two ramparts to the east.
The 1086 Domesday Book mentions Clevedon as a holding of a tenant-in-chief by the name of Mathew of Mortaigne, with eight villagers and ten smallholding. The parish of Clevedon formed part of the Portbury Hundred.
Two small rivers, the Land Yeo and Middle Yeo, supported at least two mills. The Tuck Mills lay in the fields south of Clevedon Court and were used for fulling cloth. Other mills near Wain's Hill probably date from the early 17th century.
Victorian era Clevedon changed from a farming village into a popular seaside resort. The Victorian craze for sea bathing was met in the late 19th century by saltwater baths next to the pier (since demolished, though foundations remain), and on the main beach.
Clevedon was the site of St Edith's Children's Home for almost 100 years until it closed in 1974. It was run by nuns of the Community of the Sisters of the Church, an international body in the Anglican Communion living according to the Gospel values of poverty, chastity and obedience. The building on Dial Hill is Listed building, so that the outside has changed little, but now contains private flats.
Clevedon was served by a branch line from opened in 1847, six years after the main line, but closed in 1966. The station site is now Queen's Square, a shopping precinct. The town was headquarters also for the Weston, Clevedon and Portishead Light Railway, which connected the three named coastal towns. It opened to Weston-super-Mare in 1897,Christopher Redwood (1981). 090546642X, Sequoia Publishing. 090546642X was extended to Portishead ten years later, but closed in 1940. Its trains crossed the road in the town centre, known as The Triangle, preceded by a man with red and green flags.
The first large-scale production of penicillin took place in the town. In 1938 Howard Florey was working at Lincoln College, Oxford University with Ernst Boris Chain and Norman Heatley when he read Alexander Fleming's paper on the antibacterial effects of Penicillium notatum mould. He arranged for this to be grown in deep culture tanks at the Medical Research Council's Antibiotic Research Station in Clevedon, enabling mass production of the mould for a medicine injected into forthcoming World War II soldiers suffering from infections.
Clevedon falls within the non-metropolitan district of North Somerset unitary authority which replaced the Woodspring district, having formerly been part of Somerset, and between 1974 and 1996 within the county of Avon. Until 2010 the parliamentary constituency was still called Woodspring. Following the review of parliamentary representation by the Boundary Commission for England in Somerset, this seat was renamed North Somerset. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP), currently Sadik Al-Hassan of the Labour Party. It was part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament during the UK's tenure in the European Union.
The town council is based at Clevedon Town Hall, which was constructed in 1860 as a school.
The seafront runs about half a mile from the pier to Salthouse Field, with ornamental gardens, a Victorian bandstand, a bowling green, tennis courts, crazy golf and other amusements. Marine Lake, once a Victorian swimming pool, is used for boating and for a small festival once a year where people can try out new sports. Salthouse Field once had a light railway round its perimeter and is used for summer donkey rides.
The shore at Clevedon marries pebbled beaches and low rocky cliffs, with the old harbour at the western edge of the town, at the mouth of the Land Yeo river. There John Ashley conceived of the idea for The Mission to Seafarers. The rocky beach has been designated as Clevedon Shore geological Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is the side of a mineralised fault running east–west adjacent to the pier and forms a small cliff feature in dolomitic conglomerate on the north side of Clevedon Beach, containing cream to pink baryte along with sulfide. Minerals identified include Hematite, chalcopyrite, tennantite, galena, tetrahedrite, bornite, pyrite, marcasite, enargite and sphalerite. Secondary alteration of this has produced idaite, Covellite and other .
"Poets' Walk" is a footpath round Wain's Hill and Church Hill to the south-west of the seafront. The upper town contains many other footpaths through parks and wooded areas laid out in the 19th century. The name recalls poets who visited Clevedon, including Coleridge in 1795 and Tennyson in 1834. The local nature reserve covers Church Hill and Wain's Hill and includes calcareous grassland, coastal scrub and woodland.
Yeates Removals was set up in 1910, using horses and carts for general haulage in Clevedon and surrounding areas. The company has always been run by family members.
Walton Castle is a 17th-century fort located on Castle Hill that overlooks the Walton St Mary area at the northern end of Clevedon, built some time between 1615 and 1620. It was designed as a hunting lodge for Earl Poulett, a Somerset MP. The English Civil War saw the decline of Poulett's fortunes, and by 1791 the castle was derelict and being used as a dairy by a local farmer. In 1978, the castle was purchased for £1 by Martin Sessions-Hodge, who restored the building to its former glory.
The Royal Pier Hotel is a Grade II listed building next to the pier. It was built in 1823 by Thomas Hollyman, and originally called The Rock House. In 1868, the building was expanded by the local architect Hans Price and renamed Rock House & Royal Pier Hotel, later shortened to Royal Pier Hotel. After its closure in 2001 the building fell into disrepair, but it has since been converted into luxury apartments.
Clevedon Pier opened on Easter Monday 1869. It is now one of the earliest UK examples of a Victorian pier still in existence. After a set of legs collapsed during an insurance load check on 17 October 1970, it fell into disrepair until 1985, when it was dismantled, taken to Portishead dock for restoration, and rebuilt in 1986. In 2001, it was upgraded to a Grade I listed building, The PS Waverley and motor vessel Balmoral offer day trips by sea from Clevedon Pier to points along the Bristol Channel and River Severn. Adjoining the pier is the contemporary Toll House, built in the style of a folly castle and provided to house the pier-master.
Clevedon clock tower in the town centre is decorated with "Elton ware". It was completed in 1898 and donated by Sir Edmund Elton to mark Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. The Curzon cinema dates from 1912, for Victor Cox, and is one of the world's oldest purpose-built, continuously operated Movie theater.
Clevedon Marine Lake opened in 1929. After becoming derelict and disused after the 1960s, it was restored in 2015 with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The market hall on Alexandra Road was designed by the local architect Hans Price. A monument known as the "Spirit of Clevedon" was erected near the seafront to mark the Millennium. Unveiled in June 2000, the sculpture cost £9,000. It was designed by local citizens and includes panels and plaques representing the town's history and community. Its base contains a time capsule with information on the town.
There are six primaries: Mary Elton Primary School, St John the Evangelist of Bath and Wells Academy Trust Church of England School, All Saints C of E Primary School and St Nicholas's Chantry CEVC Primary School.
Mary Elton (née Stewart of Castle Stuart), the second wife of the Elton Baronets, endowed local schools in the 19th century: the Mary Elton Primary School in Holland Road, Clevedon, is named after her.
St John's the Evangelist Primary School was formerly based on the current site of Clevedon Library. It moved to its current site on the Fosseway in 1991 and was opened by Anne, Princess Royal.
Yeo Moor Primary School, opened on 19 April 2010, amalgamated infant and junior schools that shared the site. The footballer Jack Butland attended Yeo Moor School and Clevedon School.
St Brandon's School was an independent boarding school until 1991 and a co-educational infant and junior school until 2004.
A drama company, Take The Lead, from Clevedon School, has put on productions in the town.
The Church of St John was built in 1876–1878, by William Butterfield for Sir Arthur Elton. The Church of All Saints was built in 1861 by C E Giles. The tower of Christ Church, on Chapel Hill, is an important landmark in Clevedon, erected in 1838–1839 to designs by Thomas Rickman, in an early 14th-century style.
The Copse Road Chapel is an Independent Evangelical Church, built in 1851 and attributed to Foster and Wood of Bristol, which also designed the United Reformed Church in Hill Road. The Catholic Church Church of the Immaculate Conception is served by the Franciscan order.
At the pump house, water is extracted from a well, which is deep. The upper are lined with brick, and the well supplies around of water to the public supply network each day.
Clevedon Cricket Club, founded in 1874, competes in the West of England Premier League.
Clevedon Town Football Club dates back to the late 19th century. It was a founder member of the Western Football League, winning its championship in the 1990s. The club plays at Everyone Active Stadium, formerly Hand Stadium. Another Non-League football club, Clevedon United F.C., plays at Coleridge Vale. Swiss Valley Rangers FC, founded in 2000, are a junior football club, based at Clevedon School, that has teams from ages under 6 to ages under 18.
Clevedon Bowls Club, formed in 1910, has gained several international honours.
Other facilities include Clevedon Golf Club, with a Par 72, 6,500-yard course, Riding Centre, a Rugby Club, and several others.
Local radio stations are BBC Radio Bristol, Heart West, Greatest Hits Radio South West (formerly The Breeze) and Radio Clevedon, a community based station.
The town is served by the local newspaper, North Somerset Times.
The final scene of a 1993 movie, The Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and Christopher Reeve, refers to Clevedon, where it was filmed. The television movie Cider with Rosie (1998) also has scenes filmed there. Scenes from the 2010 film, Never Let Me Go, starring Keira Knightley were filmed in Clevedon in the summer of 2009. Clevedon has its comic book superhero, Captain Clevedon. Clevedon Gets Its Own Superhero North Somerset Times.
Clevedon has been twinned with Ettlingen, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, since 1980, Épernay, France, since 1990, and Middelkerke, Belgium, since 1991.
Clevedon, in particular St Andrew's Church, was one of the settings for the town Broadchurch, a detective drama first aired on ITV on 4 March 2013.
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