News about Axe Valley Men’s Shed

28th March 2024

Axe Valley Men’s Shed would like to thank the Thatchers Foundation, who have just given us a grant of £2,500 towards our work re-purposing the old Axbridge Railway Station as a base for our work. We will be using the money to make key changes to the infrastructure of the building to make it safe and also more suitable for our needs.

27th March 2024

This month we started art classes for our Men’s Shed members at the Old Axbridge Station. Their first efforts exploring sunlight in water using acrylic paints can be seen here – with a turtle swimming up through the seaweed towards the rays of sunlight shining through the water. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with in future classes

16th March 2024

This ITV news article shows how using social prescribing to refer new people to Men’s Sheds in Wales is helping to reduce demand on the NHS.

The Health Coaches from the Axbridge, Cheddar and Wedmore GP practices know about the work that we do and refer people to us if they think it will be a benefit to them. The Health Coaches also pay regular visits to Axe Valley Men’s Shed to talk to us about initiatives to improve our health.

3rd February 2024

This morning we attended a hand-over at the monthly Axbridge Farmers Market in the town square, where we were given a donation of £500 from Barbara Wells and Margaret Cowie of the 2023 Axbridge Progressive Supper. This is an annual event in the town, where 150 or more people wander through the streets on one evening to have each of three different dinner courses – starter, dinner, pudding – in a different house with up to ten other guests. It’s a fiendishly difficult thing to understand, let alone to organise – as you’ll see in Harry Mottram’s blog post where he tries to explain it.

We’re grateful they took the time to do this and thank everyone for this our second donation from the event. This time they raised over £1,500 with donations also going to Cheddar Valley Food Bank and the Axbridge Carnival.

Photograph courtesy of Harry Mottram.

10th January 2024

The fine weather and frost-free ground at the weekend meant that we were able to plant a native hedge of over 100 dog rose and crab apple whips at our Shortlands site.

28th November 2023

We would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who attended the Kings Fitness & Leisure Back2Health Christmas charity quiz last night at The White Hart in Cheddar, and to all the local business who donated prizes for the raffle. Over £150 was raised for Axe Valley Men’s Shed.

The Back2Health scheme allows local GPs to refer people who are recovering from an illness or injury, or who would benefit from beginning exercise in a controlled manner. The scheme provides a personalised three month exercise programme using all the facilities at Kings Fitness & Leisure at a discounted price from the regular membership rate. A number of Men’s Shed members have benefited from this scheme.

29th November 2023

Hannah and Sarah from the Co-op visited us today at Axbridge Station with a donation of £1,192 from the Co-op Local Community Fund. The money is raised from a percentage of what people spend on Co-op branded products in our local store.

23rd November 2023

Day four at Shortlands and levelling for the greenhouse and fruit cage has really progressed. Our volunteers from Heidelberg Materials have also started to dig out the wildlife pond.

22nd November 2023

Day three at Shortlands and the focus is on levelling a huge amount of earth to form the base of our greenhouse and fruit cage. Our Heidelberg Materials volunteers also dug a shallow trench that we will use to plant a boundary hedge for the orchard.

21st November 2023

It’s day two in the Big Brother Household at the Shortlands men’s shed garden. Our Heidelberg Materials volunteers have finished laying down the water distribution pipe, with a branch off half way for the orchard, and have made a start clearing the ground for our greenhouse and fruit cage.

20th November 2023

It is said that the difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. This was definitely true at our Shortlands men’s shed garden today when Heidelberg Materials volunteers from Batts Combe Quarry in Cheddar turned up with this lot of lovely machines. Over the next week they will be helping us to improve the infrastructure at Shortlands. First on the agenda today was burying a pipe so that we can move water around the site more efficiently. Later this week they will be levelling an area of the site to allow us to erect a greenhouse and a fruit cage.

11th November 2023

Axe Valley Men’s Shed would like to thank Axbridge Sports & Social Club for their kind donation of £500. They are pictured here handing over the cheque to our chairman Andy Laken.

Our ability to restore the historic Axbridge Railway Station site depends entirely on the generosity of the general public and organisations like Axbridge Sports & Social Club. If you would like to support us then please consider making a donation through our GoFundMe page.

9th November 2023

Mixed feelings today as we close the door on our old shed premises. We have cleaned it out, removed some of the biggest cobwebs ever seen, taken down all the inspirational posters and moved all the woodworking equipment. We have many happy memories of our time here, but we also remember the shed members that we have lost.

It’s now ready to hand back to our landlord Dave Parkin, who has been a great supporter of Axe Valley Men’s Shed. Thanks Dave!

See the pictures of our empty shed in the gallery below.

6th November 2023

Axe Valley Men’s Shed was featured on BBC Somerset’s Charlie Taylor breakfast show on Monday 6th November. The six-minute clip talked about our recent move to the old Axbridge Railway Station and our plans to restore the building.

As mentioned in the interview, our work will be constrained by the amount of money that we can raise, so please consider supporting us by making a donation through our GoFundMe page.

Listen to the interview by clicking on the sound player below

21st October 2023

This week Axe Valley Men’s Shed held the last meeting at its home on the Valley Line Industrial Park. On Wednesday 1st November, following a flurry of activity, we will hold our first meeting at Axbridge Railway Station.

With the support of Axbridge Town Council, Axe Valley Men’s Shed recently signed a lease to take over the station site. First opened in 1869, the Strawberry Line was closed to passengers 60 years ago. After the track was removed to allow the bypass to be built, the station has been in community use by a variety of youth groups, before being abandoned and boarded up. Our initial focus has been on securing the buildings, making them safe, and cleaning up the interior. The practical skills and enthusiasm of our members mean we are looking forward to bringing the premises back to life, whilst retaining its historical character.

Axe Valley Men’s Shed a registered charity. Our aims are to provide a social meeting hub, with associated activities such as woodworking, model railway building , horticulture, or just chatting over a coffee and biscuits. We benefit those in the community wishing to meet with friends in a safe social space, and to help those recovering from mental or physical illnesses or traumatic events. Since our first meeting in the undercroft of Axbridge Methodist Church in 2019, and then our move to Cheddar in 2020, we have grown to around 50 members. We are excited for this new chapter, which will provide us with a more suitable space and give us certainty for years to come.

We hope you share our excitement and ask that you remain patient and supportive while the essential renovations take place on the site. We operate an open-door policy, so feel free to come along and say hello on a Wednesday morning – we would be delighted to show you around and tell you more about our activities. If you can help us with funding then please get in touch, or support us by donating through our GoFundMe page

Thanks to author Richard Harman for providing the station photos and line drawing.

19th September 2023

Earlier this year, local artist Bridget Hemmings set up the Cheddar Individuality Project. Inspired by the work of Anthony Gormley, she helped local people, many of whom had little or no artistic experience, to create 1,000 individual sculptures of themselves or other people. The sculptures were exhibited in May before being displayed around Cheddar village and gorge. Axe Valley Men’s Shed helped Bridget and the team by producing some shelves to display the sculptures plus a number of laser-engraved wooden signs to be displayed with each group. The signs included a QR code (a two-dimensional barcode) that allowed visitors to find out more information about the project and to “check in” to the exhibit. From early July to the middle of September, our QR code signs logged nearly 8,000 visitor check-ins. The pictures below show some of the sculptures on display, together with one of our laser-engraved signs.

16th September 2023

Axe Valley Men’s Shed was happy to answer Wild Cheddar’s call for help and provide this laser-engraved sign for Cheddar First School’s new pond.

Shed member Mike attended the official unveiling. The pond was originally built in September 2005 by Cheddar Vale Lions Club, assisted by current shed members Mark and Mike.

27th July 2023

Axe Valley Men’s Shed has developed its relationship with the team at Hanson Batts Combe Quarry in Cheddar even further by donating several Dormouse nesting boxes.

These boxes were made by shed members in our workshop from natural un-treated wood. They will be mounted hole-side-into-the-trunk on the Dormice’s preferred hazel trees at Batts Combe Quarry to provide shelter and breeding spaces for these precious endangered and protected creatures.

The handover took place at Axe Valley Men’s Shed HQ in Cheddar.

24th July 2023

We had a great day on Sunday at the Summer Skate Jam Festival – In aid of The Space aka the FlamJam. As a group concerned with men’s mental health it was a privilege to attend an event supporting two charities concerned with youth mental health.

Thanks to Lesley Page for the photos.

25th June 2023

In 1623, the town of Axbridge was given its third royal charter. At the time, the town Bailiff and Sergeant at the Mace – predecessors of the modern police force – were each given ceremonial silver maces. Four hundred years later the history of these now fragile artefacts was celebrated as they were retired and placed for safekeeping into a display cabinet in the town’s King John’s Hunting Lodge Museum. The current Bailiff and Sergeant at the Mace now proudly carry wooden replicas of the original maces that were carved by Axe Valley Men’s Shed.

21st May 2023

Chaps been busy making name plates for our new orchard , coming along nicely.

Our next project is to erect our fruit cage .

Find our more information and see pictures of our Shortlands site on our Projects page.

18th May 2023

Shed members recently visited Hanson Batts Combe Quarry which is dug deep into the Mendip Hills on the edge of Cheddar village.

After a safety briefing we were taken high up on to the edge of the quarry to see its operation. We then went right down to the quarry face where drilling was taking place for the next schedule blast. Finally we had coffee & biscuits while watching a presentation that included several videos of the blasts at the quarry.