Can you guess where this week’s Mystery Photograph was taken?

Each week, the Journal invites readers to test their knowledge by identifying a historic location from days gone by.

We had one entry for last week’s picture from Jeff Parsons who guessed it was Monkton Combe with St Michael’s Church in the background. He guessed: “I think that this week you may well be in Monkton Combe, with the church of St Michael in the mid background, with its Bell Tower rising above the church building.”

Unfortunately, Mr Parsons was incorrect. In actual fact, the view is of Bishop Sutton, north east of the Mendip Hills, and information from the Radstock Museum suggests it was a view of the village from the top of the pit head or winding wheel of the coal mine.

Well done to all our readers who guessed correctly at home.

The photo is from an undated postcard captioned “Bishop Sutton”. The mine in Bishop Sutton which was as far as the Somerset coalfield extended, and was operational from around 1811 to 1929.

There has been many pits on the Bishop Sutton site with the first known lease on this site signed in 1811. A later new pit was sunk around 1889 after flooding in the former pit, and by 1914 around 50 men worked on the site. It was never a thriving pit in economic terms, and it changed hands in the early 1920s before the general strike in 1926. After setbacks, the pit finally closed in March 1929 marking the end of a way of life for the village and its community.

Our thanks again go to Radstock Museum for the latest supply of Mystery Photographs.

To submit your answers to the Journal, please email us at: [email protected]