Some may not be surprised that even during the normal working day, I spent a great deal of time in pubs!

Palmer's Brewery

The firm of R Moulding & Sons Ltd carried out a significant amount of work for Palmers of Bridport. In fact, our company worked on most of the pubs and property, owned by Palmers, west of Bridport.

The Palmer family were wonderful people to work for. In the early days, the boss was Tony Palmer and we worked with a Mr Anderson, who had a supervisory role with Palmers. Later, I worked with John Palmer and the work was supervised by a delightful man, Mr Harold Puley, who was engaged as the company's surveyor.

I became friendly with Harold, who had a refereeing role with the football association. This enabled him to obtain tickets for Wembley Stadium, where I accompanied Harold to watch an England International and a Cup Final. Sadly, Harold died at an early age, far too young.

Millwey Rise

In the sixties, prior to my arrival back with the family firm, Mouldings built the new pub at Millwey Rise – "The Millwey". It is such a shame that the pub is no longer there. I believe Palmers were caught between two options. They wanted to attract local trade and therefore provided an excellent skittle alley, but they also wanted to cater for lounge business and passing trade.

Unfortunately, I think they got it wrong. Surely, the pub should have been looking after its local trade from the Millwey Rise estate? The public bar for locals seemed to be too small and the lounge bar was too big. Often the bar was choc-a-bloc, yet the lounge was empty. Another mistake from my perspective was that the car park was at the front of the pub, rather than around the back. This meant that the pub was set well back from the road and cars driving along Chard Road were well past the pub, before they realised it was actually there.

So ultimately, Palmers made the decision to shut the pub and sell the site, which has now been established as Otterton Mews, Eldridge House and Millwey Court. It was a sad day when the pub was razed to the ground – when it was built by Mouldings for Palmers, it was their 100th pub.

Axminster and Kilmington

I mentioned in my previous edition that during school and college holidays, I worked on the building of the Axminster Inn skittle alley. During my time, our firm also carried out upgrades to the five cottages adjacent to the pub by installing bathrooms and kitchens in each property.

We also carried out extensive work to the New Commercial (now River Cottage Canteen). On the first floor Palmers had considered that the modern way of operating a restaurant was self-service. So we converted a suite of rooms on the first floor into a self-service café. The finished product was fine and a lovely man called Russ Cubley was brought in to promote this new business. Unfortunately, it didn't really take off and became used more as a function room.

I remember it well as the weekly venue for Rotary Club meetings. Eventually the New Commercial business, including the pub, cake shop, ground and first floor function rooms, was taken over by the Walden family – Bill, his son Jeremy (well known by most of us as an Axminster Town councillor and former mayor) and their respective wives. They ran a very good business for many years, until unfortunate circumstances and advancing years for Bill and his wife, brought the business to a close.

At Kilmington, the Moulding firm worked at the New Inn, mostly bar upgrades and works to the skittle alley.

Uplyme and Lyme Regis

At Uplyme, the firm carried out extensive adaptations to the bar and reception areas at the Black Dog Hotel – now the Black Dog Tearooms.

We also built an extension to the living accommodation at the New Inn, Uplyme – at the junction of the main road with Whalley Lane - another Palmers pub which is no longer operating.

In Lyme Regis, we worked at the Ship Inn, but I particularly remember extensive work which we carried out at the historic Three Cups Hotel in Broad Street. Substantial work was required to ensure that each hotel room satisfied fire regulations and other statutory requirements – and eventually work stopped. I believe the hotel was closed in 1990 and has not opened since.

Pubs in the Bridport direction

We didn't seem to work much at The Royal Oak in Charmouth, nor the Anchor at Seatown, but we modernised the two cottages, adjacent to the Ship in Morcombelake – another Palmer's pub which closed some years ago. We also built a new entrance and car park at the George at Chideock.

Beyond Bridport and the furthest we travelled for Palmers, we renovated two pub cottages at the Marquis of Lorne at Nettlecombe. What a lovely little pub – way off the beaten track, but well worth a visit.

Moulding's Lorry

In the early seventies our firm was working quite extensively in the Uplyme/Lyme Regis/ Charmouth direction and it was during this time that an accident occurred in Lyme Street, Axminster, which could have been far worse.

At just after 8am, our lorry had left the yard in South Street, circumnavigated the town and was moving towards Lyme Street on its journey up Lyme Road. Suddenly it was met by a runaway truck hurtling down Lyme Street at breakneck speed. Our lorry had nowhere to manoeuvre and the runaway truck, whose brakes had failed, could do nothing but plough into our lorry. Three of our employees finished up in hospital, one with serious injuries, which kept him at home for several months.

Apart from the danger to pedestrians, if the runaway truck had continued down Lyme Street and past the George Hotel, it would have hurtled into the Bell Hotel and possibly demolished part of the building. We also reflected on the fact that if all this had been happening half-an-hour later, there would have been dozens of children walking to school and a tragic loss of life could have ensued.

For a considerable amount of time that I was back with the firm, the lorry driver was Ernie Anning. Ernie was one of those injured by the accident described above. He was small and very slim – but strong enough, when handling cement, six-inch concrete blocks, concrete lintels, etc. Ernie was a character and often came out with some verbal gems. I remember one of his classic observations when the refuse collectors passed by. "I can never understand those dustmen," he said. "They spend all day long picking up rubbish and what do they do with it – they throw it all away". I surmise that Ernie's remark is not appropriate nowadays, as the vast percentage of refuse collected is now recycled.

Other Public Houses, Hospitality and Leisure establishments

The Cotley Inn

Mouldings also carried out a major refurbishment at the Cotley Inn, Wambrook, for the Cotley Manor Estate, which involved a re-arrangement of the accommodation and a new skittle alley, all built in flint stone with reclaimed double roman clay roof tiles. I believe the skittle alley is now a fine dining area.

We carried out a number of contracts for the Eames family in the seventies and eighties, including some refurbishments at Cotley House for Lt Col and Mrs Eames. This involved taking up the carpet in the hall and main reception rooms. Strangely, underneath the carpet the floor had been covered with what only can be described as sides of tea chests, presumably as an "underlay" to the carpet. Mrs Eames asked us to take up the tea chests to see what was underneath – and there, never been seen for many, many years, was the most beautiful oak floor. Mrs Eames asked us if we could arrange to clean, sand, seal and oil the oak floor. It looked fabulous.

Axe Vale Social Club

Originally known as the Legion Club, we carried out maintenance work at the club – and yet again (it seemed to be a speciality of ours) in the 1980s we built a new skittle alley. Sadly theclub closed several years ago and became infamous in the past decade for the discovery of a massive cannabis farm on three floors, valued at around £I million. The person responsible was jailed for three years.

Axminster Conservative Club

R Moulding & Sons carried out a major refurbishment of the Conservative Club in the eighties, working closely with an interior designer, who introduced a few radical ideas – not least, when she chose a Wilton Carpet for the whole of the ground floor. The Conservative Club, of course, together with the Axminster Heritage building, was the site of the Axminster Carpet Factory in the 18th and 19th century. The fact that a Wilton carpet was being installed in the home of Axminster Carpets was covered by most of the national press.

Axe Yacht Club

In the early 1970s our firm built a large extension to the Axe Yacht Club at Seaton, which included showers, committee rooms and a race control tower. This was a tricky job as the work was executed during the winter months, whilst sailing was suspended. The winter weather was relatively kind to us and the work was completed in time for the start of the new season.

Axminster Football Club

The firm refurbished the changing rooms, showers and clubhouse at Sector Lane in the 1980s for Axminster Football Club. The work was funded by the demolition of the obsolete grandstand and the sale of land for the development of sheltered housing now known as Valley View.

Memories of the firm working in Axminster, Weycroft Ward and Raymonds Hill

It's difficult to pick out individual properties constructed, renovated, refurbished and maintained in and around the town. R Moulding & Sons Ltd carried out work on many hundreds of properties in and around Axminster.

It was interesting recently to take a look at the work carried out so well by Axminster Property at Trinity House, as our firm carried out all the maintenance work and upgrades for Fields in the eighties and nineties.

I particularly remember gaining access to the rear chimney from the "Old Bell Yard". This would be one of the highest ladder climbs in the town. Our workforce knew I wasn't keen on heights – so when working on that chimney, they shouted down "Come on boss – you need to come up here and see the problems with this chimney". I had to get up there - so I gingerly climbed the steepest triple extension ladder we possessed, not letting them know that I was petrified!

We carried out work on a number of business premises in the town – creating the first Moleavon Store, a new shop for Kelsalls in South Street (now the Co-op convenience store), the new pannier market building on the site now known as Auction Place and many more.

One project that sticks in my memory is the conversion of a property in South Street for Christopher and Norma Love. The Love family had a dream of running an antique shop – and so with the assistance of architect Simon Leech, we created "The Old Curiosity Shop". When completed it looked fabulous. Ultimately, Christopher and Norma converted the property to the Tudor Cottage Residential Care Home, which continues to this day.

I mentioned in my last edition of Moulding's Memories that our firm worked regularly at Axminster Hospital. As many will know, the Scott Rowe Centre in Chard Road is a prefabricated, cedar-clad superstructure and our firm won the contract to carry out the groundworks and construct the foundations for the building.

As required, before starting the work, checks were made with utility companies to ascertain the position of gas, water, electricity, sewer and telephone lines on the site. Having ensured their positions, excavators entered the site and work commenced to form the entrance drive, where we were assured (and confirmed by plans) that there was nothing to obstruct progress – after all, it was just a field before work commenced.

We hadn't been on site for more than half-an-hour when there was a huge explosion, sparks were flying and the majority of Axminster was without electricity. It was some while before SWEB (as it was then) reinstated the main and we were able to carry on. As you can imagine, there was quite a battle over insurance.

Also in Axminster, we worked in and around the hamlets and lanes of Axminster – Millbrook, Beavor Lane, Cloakham, Westwater, Stoney Bridges, Sector, Old Park and Woodbury Lane. At Hunthay, we made major adaptations to Hunthay House for Madame Leavesley who ran an exclusive ladies fashion shop in Sidmouth. She was a small lady, who insisted on being called Madame. Her husband was Ronnie, a very pleasant man – they were a lovely couple.

My father became particularly friendly with them, as they shared Tim's love of music. A small room within the house was converted to become a bar; well stocked with drinks and a piano in one corner. My mother and father visited them on more than one occasion – with Ronnie behind the bar and Madame and Tim taking it in turn to play the piano. My mother just enjoyed listening and supping a gin and tonic or three.

Raymonds Hill was another area where we embarked on a number of projects – not least an attractive house in Cooks Lane. The exterior skin of the house was flint stone, with brick reveals to the window and door openings and when completed, looked extremely smart from the outside. However, I remember it well, for the way we constructed the dividing wall between the lounge and dining area, which incorporated a large tropical fish tank, accessible from both rooms.

We carried out a number of assignments in Crewkerne Road, Harcombe Road and Trinity Hill. I well remember works carried out at one house on Trinity Hill, as it was associated with my passion for cricket. The roof space was cleared out by our client – I believe this was in readiness for works to the plumbing system and to install insulation. After our customers had sorted things out in the roof space (which hadn't been looked at for years), they had discovered something which they thought may have been of interest to me and they would like me to have. They were three Axminster Town Cricket Club scorebooks for the years 1908, 1909 and 1910 – the like of which we had never seen before at our cricket club – a real treasure. After a little research, we figured out that the house at one time had been owned by one of the local vicars whose daughter was the cricket club scorer and she had stowed the books away in the roof space for safe keeping.

Like most builders, we tended to build, occupy, sell and then move on to the next one – often because we needed the money for the following scheme. My wife and two sons were extremely patient and supportive.

When we first moved to Axminster, for a short while we lived in the Croft, right opposite our builders' yard. That was OK - but after Robert was born, my mother would say that she couldn't sleep because she could hear the baby crying. We probably slept through it!

We then built two houses at Elm Close in Chard Road, on land we had purchased from the Snell family, via my good friend Frank Rowe at R & C Snell. One house was for ourselves and the other for the Axminster Post Master. After a while, we sold ours and moved to Lea Combe, before we embarked on one of our favourite projects – the conversion of Elson House in Chard Street, to Hanover House (now the home of the Axminster Health and Wellbeing Centre). The property belonged to Jack Gill and was again sold to us, via R & C Snell. We changed the name as soon as we bought the property, as living in Elson House -sounded like we were living in a lavatory!

Hanover House had four storeys. There was a lovely dry cellar where our boys had a mini-snooker table. On the ground floor we opened it up to provide a large lounge and built an extension to upgrade the kitchen. On the first floor there were three bedrooms, bathroom, etc. and there was an attic room, where he boys had a small table-tennis table. It was a real family home. At the rear of the house was a walled-in garden – totally private with high stone walls around the perimeter. It was ideal for barbecues and cricket and football for the boys. Dear old Jack Gill would be constantly lobbing back footballs and tennis balls from his garden at Castle Mount which backed on to our garden.

In 1988, my mother and father moved to their bungalow in Wide Post Lane and we embarked on major renovations to the family home, alongside the builders' yard, which is where we stayed until the business moved to Musbury in 1993.

My career in the construction industry (Part Three – Villages, Farms and Estates) will be in the next edition of "Moulding's Memories"