The Original Cholwell House
The Original Cholwell House was the manor of Ciele listed in the Domesday Book of 1086. (Chalwell).
Cholwell is situated in Temple Cloud. Temple Cloud is a Hamlet and pleasant village in this parish, seated on an eminence commanding line views of the surrounding country 1.5 miles north-east from Cameley Church, on the high road from Bristol to Wells and 10 miles from Bristol. It is supposed to have been the site of a Roman encampment and of a temple of honour of Claudius Caesar hence its name "Templum Claudii" corrupted into Temple Cloud.
In 1726 the manor of Cholwell was purchased by Richard Mogg (b 1690 d1729).
Cholwell House was built by William Rees Mogg, his son William Wooldridge, his son Edmund 'Fletcher' and his son also named William. It was started in 1849 and completed in 1854. The family then moved into the new house when the old house was demolished in 1855.
William Wooldridge was one of two principal land owners in Camely. His son Fletcher Rees Mogg (b1889 d1962) was a wealthy farmer who served in WW1 as a lieutenant in the RASC and was the High Sheriff of Somerset in 1945. During the first world war, the house was rented to the Reynolds family whilst Fletcher was at the Weston front.
Edmunds son (b 1928 d 2012) lived at Cholwell and was schooled at home until 1937 then went to Clifton College.
By 1940 Clifton school was evacuated to Cholwell House and then to Butcombe court for the remaining 3 terms.
In a book of memoirs written by William the following extracts refer to Cholwell House.
"The German night attacks on the larger cities outside London started in November 1940. Bristol was bombed in two raids, with a week between them. My parents in Cholwell could see the glow of the fires and heard the bombers passing overhead.
After the second attack my parents decided to take me away from Clifton- I was driven out to Cholwell by one of the housemasters, on his motorbike. The whole school was then evacuated to Cholwell House, sleeping on mattresses. The boys ate us out of Canadian honey which my mother , ever mindful of the Irish famine, had laid up in the cellar"
In 1941 Cholwell was requisitioned to be used as a wartime evacuation home for the children from Wick House Nursery in Brislington and was called Cholwell House Home for Babies and was operated by The Waifs and Strays Society.
It closed in 1945 and the children were transferred to Wick House Nursery in Weston Super Mare and returned to Brislington in 1946.
We know that it then became a hotel and was run by Mr and Mrs Tressider who came from Mousehole in Cornwall. The picture shown is of a wedding reception held there in November 1953 β although we are not entirely sure of the dates it operated as a Hotel. Mrs Tressider was an exceptional cook and after giving up the hotel, she became the Rees-Moggs cook at Ston Easton.
After the hotel closed it became council offices for Clutton Parish Council renamed Wansdyke District Council (1974) and then Bath and North East Somerset Council.
The former caretaker employed by the Council lived on the premises at Cholwell on the top floor which had been converted into an apartment from 1976 to 1985. He then lived at Cholwell from August 2017 as a resident until he died in April 2019 βOn the first day he arrived at Cholwell he said "Oh it's good to be back home".
In 1985 the home was bought by a private buyer who converted it into a Nursing Home for the elderly. It was purchased in 1992 by it's current owners Mr and Mrs Thompson, whose three daughters, along with the Home Manager - Fiona Trezise continue to provide quality care in a safe, caring homely environment for it's residents.
