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Mendip vale - sheds and build locations

 

Mendip Vale’s float building site has varied over the years, between 1965 and 1978 the club built at locations such as, the old railway goods yard, land at Westbury-sub-Mendip and a farm in Coxley.

From 1978 the club then built on rough land next to the Green Ore café at Green Ore north of Wells until November 1989 when the club moved permanently to a more central location in Wells itself. In 1986, 1987 and 1988, the last month of building was carried out half under cover at the old railway goods shed, which stood on the site of Travis Perkins in Wells until the mid-1990s.

 

Mendip Vale has been desperately seeking a permanent, suitable site on which to construct the float since the late-1980s. Between 1990 and 1993, the club built outside at the Cold Store (‘the coldest place in the universe!’), sometimes in a field with no cover, and nearer to carnival time the float moved from side to side of the Cold Store, using the old railway canopies as limited cover. In 1993 a ‘temporary’ shed constructed from scaffolding, corrugated tin and tarpaulins was built on adjacent land, and that "temporary" structure contained the float until 2006!.

 

In 2006 the club left its site on the cold store site after to many break-ins and the land becoming unavailable. The club quickly realised the only way forward would be to fin d a permanent shed of there own. All funds were stretched and this meant no float in 2006 and the float was taken to a farm  near burnham on sea for safe storage until a suitable location could be found this proved harder than expected with the rising cost of land and lack of planning. In 2007 the club decide they must show carnival spirt even if it would be extremely difficult and got set on building a tractor and generator with an orginal theme of "Super Bowl" this theme depected American Footballers, Cheerleaders and Bands Members and had a very unusal but effective mix of music. The Tractor and Generator did extremley well and proved that Mendip Vale could still mix it with the best.

 

The club bought three lorry trailers bought as temporary workshops and the club very kindly had the offer to build on a local farmers land. The Club then after long negations with Glastonbury Carnival Committee moved onto the Butler carnival park as a temporary measure until further negations could be made. In 2008 all funds were taken up on the first stages of building a new shed at the Butler Carnival park so a walking entry "Step back in Time" was brought out depicting the history of Mendip Vale and its previous successes. In January 2009 the new shed started to take shape and over the years the club has been building this shed in a hope to secure its future.

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