SLIPPERY CUSTOMERS

Conger eels, once a staple of a working family’s diet, could be found in gullies at low tide or hiding under the supports of the former Minehead pier. They were stunned and left to dry out on the Quay Street sea wall.

Anything from two to six feet long with needle-sharp teeth, the conger’s appearance supported its reputation as the Rottweiler of the sea and there are stories of massive eels coming back to life on the wall and giving passers-by a nasty shock!

Eastwards along the beach from Minehead, congers were caught by the ancient art of glatting - flushed out from their hiding-places by dogs and dispatched with a stick.

Glatting was done for the pot and coastal villages had their own territories east and west of Minehead - Blue Anchor was a favourite spot. The area’s last glatsman, Clifford Beaver, who was still hunting eels in his eighties, remembered being one of an impoverished family of eight living in Roadwater.

“I was brought up on conger. My grandfather would bring them home and a couple of good-sized ones would feed us for the weekend,” he said.