Evercreech, United Kingdom

History

The village was recorded as Evrecriz in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Small Down Knoll (or Small Down Camp) is a Bronze Age hill fort above the village which rises to 728 feet (222 m).

War was declared on 3rd September, 1939, and later that month, the local village school received 215 children evacuees, 18 teachers and 6 helpers, from two schools in West Ham, East London.

In 1941, 50 more children and their teachers arrived from Bristol after a bombing from Germany.

The children were welcomed into the homes of the villagers. However, rationing was a prominent issue even though many of the children had come with their own ration book.

Schools also had to adapt as their current teaching facilities and schedules could not accommodate and teach all of the extra students. The village town hall was used as an extra space and volunteers helped to look after the children and assist the teachers in the parish.

American soldiers had been arriving in Evercreech ever since 1942; however, in 1944, a group of African-American G.I.s were sent to the area. Most people in rural Somerset had never seen a Black person before, so seeing African-American soldiers was a novelty for the Evercreech population. However, the people of Evercreech welcomed the Black G.I.s in the same way they welcomed evacuees throughout the war, and the American presence was a boost to the morale of the British public.

From the History section of Evercreech on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.