The Old Thatched Cottage Restaurant
Weston-super-Mare
Blue Plaque Winning Research
Andie Jeffries and her mum run this long-standing and much loved family restaurant, which her grandparents bought in 1959. The restaurant is housed in one of Weston’s oldest standing buildings, which was literally built on the beach in the late eighteenth century.
Having been almost brought up in the restaurant, Andie always had a burning itch about the story of its past, including a hunch that it must hold important secrets - but even she could never have believed what I uncovered - the significance of which has now led to the awarding of a prestigious blue plaque for the property.
Depiction of the Old Thatched Cottage in c1820, painted in the 1880s
The clearly very old appearance of the restaurant meant that Andie’s customers were regularly asking her about its history and she always regretted not being able to give them much information other than its age. In 2019, the common enquiries became something of an avalanche after the cottage was mentioned in an English Heritage guide to Weston and this led to Andie deciding she needed to do something about it.
Andie commissioned me to produce enough information on the history of the cottage to create a pamphlet she could hand out to customers. I was able to identify all the former residents of the building, all its different uses and numerous undiscovered images and documents - including of its incredible survival through no less than ten catastrophic floods, storms and fires.
An 1888 cycling rally starting at the Old Thatched Cottage, then known as ‘The White Cross Dairy’
A particularly striking finding though had a remarkable connection to Andie and her family, who are first and second generation Greek Cypriots.
All they knew was the name of the first owner of the cottage, William Leeves - a man, who it turned out, had quite a remarkable story all of his own - but the life of his son Henry, including his time in Greece saving the lives of Greeks from the Ottomans and becoming the first person to translate the Bible into modern Greek, was simply astonishing - for more on the life of Henry Leeves, please read my article on him by clicking on the button below.
The research I uncovered about the history of the cottage, including the story of the Leeves Family, was thought to be so significant that the property has been awarded a prestigious blue plaque.
"What Graham found out about was amazing and for it to end up with the awarding of a blue plaque is simply incredible! Graham really helped us to appreciate how the Cottage fits into the history of Weston and the local community. Whenever customers ask us about the history of the building we now have countless stories to share with them. Knowing the history in this way really helps us to provide an even better experience for our customers. We simply can't thank Graham enough for his fantastic research."
Andie Jeffries, The Old Thatched Cottage Restaurant