Owners of No. 18 Gloucester Road

George and Joan Excell

In March 1947, the house was put up for auction by Geoffrey Stephen Hodges of Weybridge and John Hodges of Castle Street, Thornbury (the Trustees of George Hodges).  It was bought by George Alfred Excell, an electrical engineer. who moved in shortly after with his wife, Joan.

At the time, George was working at the Bristol Aeroplane Company at Patchway where he worked on the test beds for the Brabazon and the Britannia and he was there during the very early stages of the development of engines for the Concorde. 

In 1952, whilst still working at Patchway, George was encouraged to apply for the post of clerk to the parish council and he was appointed.  Joan helped him by doing the typing.  He said in an interview which he later gave to the Thornbury Oral History Society that he “was surprised when one night when I got home there were twelve egg boxes in the hall full of books and papers and goodness knows what and a little note to say that the safe would follow in a few days”.

The offices of the parish council became 18 Gloucester Road.  In his own words: “we lived in the little cottages then on the left hand side as you approached the Plain.  They were very small and our living room became living room/office; a large filing cabinet in the corner, typewriter poised on the top.  The crockery was turned out of the cupboard to accommodate the files and emergency meetings of the council were always held in the little dining room.  One day they included the Education chief from Gloucester County Council - we were then in Gloucester County – and he termed it the smallest town hall in England, quite rightly so.”

George continued in this role of clerk on a part time basis until 1965 when he was offered the job full time.  He had been very busy with parish affairs and bored with his work at Rolls Royce.  He was thus heavily involved with the development of Thornbury and the change from a parish council to Town Council in 1974.  George carried on as Town Clerk until 1984 when he retired.

George did a great deal of work on the house.  It was he who put in the downstairs bathroom as it presumably had no bathroom until that time.  He also knocked down the old outhouse to put in the lean to conservatory.  He used the rubble from the old building to make the foundation of the famous workshop at the bottom of the garden and at some time built the flat-topped wall between 18 and 20 Gloucester Road.  George did most of this work himself with the help of a couple of tradesman.

In the first couple of years after moving in they had at least one very wet winter and George arranged for the pump to come up from the cemetery to pump it out.  The water was half way up the cellar steps.  Joan thought the job was easier because George had had a cement floor put in to the cellar.  The coal used to be delivered through the chute into the cellar.

George and Joan continued living at number 18 until June 1970 when they moved to a larger and more modern house in Severn Drive.  George died in September 2005 and he is buried in the Cemetery.  Joan is still living in Thornbury.

Click here - for information on the early life of George Excell

This page was last updated: 23/03/2007