Broad Street Wrington at War 1939-45
by Mark Bullen

In November 1939 the local paper reported that the formation of Wrington’s Auxiliary Fire Brigade was proceeding satisfactorily and that Mr. E.E. Hardwick, ARDC Wrington representative, had offered them a bell as a fire alarm. The bell was owned by Mrs. Hardwick and had been passed down through the generations.

Mr. Garrett expressed his gratitude to the Hardwicks and Tom Bush, in accepting the gift on his brigade’s behalf, thanked the donors and declared that although the war had come along and upset their plans, the brigade was gradually coming together.

Chief Officer Egan said he hoped to see the bell erected permanently, probably in the centre of the village, together with a tablet commemorating the Hardwick family gift.:

“We have a fine body of men in training here and they will be pleased to know that their pump is at Axbridge waiting for the necessary equipment, which I hope will soon be available so that it can be placed in the Fire Station. I think Wrington will have reason to be satisfied with their brigade.”

After prolonged discussion about the pros and cons of various locations, the Council eventually decided to put it up at the Fire Station

Villager Ken Schroeder, who later became the brigade’s Chief Officer, recalled that Tom Bush built a roofed bell tower rising about 10 or 12 feet above the building. The bell and its fixings survive to this day and it is hoped that at some time in the future the existing Parish Council will see fit to have it mounted, together with a commemorative plaque, alongside the old fire station.


During the winter of 1940 the Wrington Brigade acquired a stand pipe and about 500 feet of hose, but until their pump arrived, they could only tackle fires near a water hydrant. Whilst gathering information about existing fire precautions, the Brigade had listed all water supplies, both private and natural, and surveyed the hydrants throughout the village, finding the latter to be few and far between. For example, there was none along the whole length of Station Road between the King’s Road council houses and Broad Street.

The actual state of the hydrants which did exist gave cause for concern, the one near Bathard’s butchers shop in School Road having been found to be full of grit and mud and lacking a proper screw cap. The Parish Council were called upon to make the necessary improvements.
By April the men had obtained their trailer pump and were almost ready to start operations.

Within a further three months they took another major step forward when, with the help of public donations, they purchased a motor car to tow the trailer.

They soon even had their own telephone - Wrington 275 - and by the autumn Tom and his second-in-command Reg Kelly had recruited enough men to run two complete brigades.
Under Fire Precautions schemes, the Home Office issued trailer pumps to many local authorities and Wrington probably received a light or medium-sized appliance. They could be towed behind a motor car, could be man-handled over rough terrain or debris impassable to ordinary fire-engines or cars and could deliver four high-pressure streams of water

Although it was strategic targets which were most at risk from bombing, returning planes often jettisoned any left-over bombs in a rather indiscriminate way, putting rural districts at real, though less predictable, risk. Axbridge RDC provided valuable and comprehensive advice to farmers and others in parts of the country, where the water supply was the chief source of worry.

“ Fill all available receptacles and keep them near the house or farm buildings. Remove machinery and implements away from the house and outbuildings into the open in order to reduce the fire risk and impede landings. Keep the yards clear of loose hay, straw and other combustible material that may cause the spread of fire to adjacent buildings.

Approaches to ditches, rhines and ponds for water supply should be made easy of access and where the water is shallow, dig a large hole or sink a barrel there to conserve the supply and provide sufficient depth for use of buckets or a trailer pump.

During the danger period have watchers keeping a constant look out for outbreaks of fire and summon the nearest fire party as soon as possible. Remember that the water supply is vital to them for your assistance and improve any supply on your own property in order that they may get to work without delay while your beaters are checking the spread of fire. Co-operate with your neighbours in supplying appliances and watchers to safeguard crops and be sure they are familiar with arrangements for calling assistance. Place water in the most convenient places during harvest, allow time for wetting sacks or firebreaks and find out if there is a fire party near you to assist and the quickest method of calling them if no telephone is available.”

In September, the Wrington unit attended its first fire when it was called, not to extinguish a burning building set alight by incendiary bombs, but to a rather less glamorous event – a fire in the local rubbish dump at the foot of Old Hill. Incredibly, this fire had been burning for about three months and had obtained a hold on practically the whole of the dump and the surrounding limestone rock.

Chief Officer Egan sent over the necessary hose and the local brigade, led by the indefatigable Tom Bush, quickly got on the job. Then, when about to commence operations from the water main supply at Prestow, word came through that there was insufficient water available in the mains to allow the brigade to draw upon. This was a serious state of affairs, but the day was saved when some very public-spirited residents allowed the brigade to draw water from their private water supply. Although even this was not enough to put out the fire, one thing it did expel was any idea that the trailer pump would not be of much use for a big fire; it performed exceptionally well and impressed all the firemen.

Ken Schroeder has special memories of the Prestow Wood rubbish dump:

“ When I started work on the farm I had to make a bike up out of pieces. I had to go up to the limekiln at the bottom of Wrington Hill. Behind that was a tip where they tipped everything. It was the village dump and it caught fire sometimes. When we were kids it was our playground. If a tin was dented the shopkeepers would dump them up there and we used to go up, break open the tins and have the fruit in them.”

By all events the Wrington brigade were very highly regarded and, as part of one of their regular training exercises, the unit took part in and won an Axbridge RDC Fire Services competition at the nearby village of Cross.

Meanwhile, the national situation was about to change dramatically. Two years into the war, the devastating effect of the air-raids which occurred between September 1940 and the following spring threw into sharp relief the more obvious weaknesses of a decentralised fire-fighting system. No less than one thousand fire authorities in England and Wales were maintaining a brigade with an auxiliary service attached. Resources were fragmented and communication and co-operation between authorities were poor or non-existent. Naturally it was at fires that the problems of this hotchpotch organisation showed most strikingly.

Government acted quickly. In May 1941 the Fire Services (Emergency Provisions) Bill became law and within three months the Fire Authorities of England Wales and Scotland were swept away and replaced by a new National Fire Service (N.F.S.)

The brigade continued to give excellent service throughout the war and the last war-time report of the Wrington brigade in action appeared in January 1945, when they successfully extinguished a potentially serious fire at the oldest and most important building in the village - All Saints Church:

“ Wrington’s celebrated church, which has the most stately tower in Somerset, was in danger of being gutted by a fire which broke out in the roof on Friday evening. It was caused by a defective flue which leads from the boiler house, proceeds over the outside wall of the church and terminates in a chimney. Thanks to timely discovery and prompt action of the NFS, the fire was quickly quelled and minimum damage resulted. It was first noted shortly after 11pm and the part-time members of the NFS at Wrington, under leading fireman Bush, made a prompt turnout with their light trailer pump and got to work from hydrants. Preb. A.J. Hook, Rector, and others associated with the church, also joined in the fire-fighting and gave valuable assistance.”

The parent NFS station at Cheddar was informed and a Cheddar crew, manning a major pump, was quickly in attendance under Section Leader Abrahams. The sub-area officer also arrived from Weston-super-Mare to take charge. The fire had ignited rafters in the roof but the damage was confined to an area of about ten square feet. It was not anticipated that it would result in anything but a temporary interruption of normal services.

With their wide roof-span, difficulty of access and dry, seasoned woodwork, churches were extremely vulnerable to fire as was so often proved in enemy action. Had Wrington church been gutted, the country would have lost an architectural gem.