![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride1.jpg)
We have a plaque
Remember the petition to install a plaque honouring Ritchie Blackmore? Well, it succeeded:
Hi Everybody, Yesterday, I viewed a plaque dedicated to Ritchie at his place of birth in Weston super Mare. I inspired the writing and the owners kindly sponsored a large metal plaque and placed it on the outside of the building for all to see. We will have a full unveiling on Ritchie’s birthday in April. Thanks again for your support
Can we have the address please?
[Update March 2]: Music Radar has more details on the plaque:
After starting a petition to install a plaque marking the town as Blackmore’s birthplace, John managed to collect over 2300 signatures. However when it was presented to the council, it was rejected on the grounds that Blackmore was still alive and therefore doesn’t qualify.
The story doesn’t end there, though. While the council’s misgivings might have stopped a blue plaque from being awarded, Allendale Nursing Home on Beach Road – the building where Blackmore was born – has decided to step in to realise John’s goal.
“The good news is the nursing home has sponsored and installed a plaque on their front wall for all to see. And let me design it,” he told Guitar World. “We hope to have a full unveiling ceremony on Ritchie’s birthday in April.”
Apparently, the Allendale Nursing Home is now called Beach Lawns Residential and Nursing Home and its address is 67 Beach Road, Beach Front, Weston-super-Mare BS23 4BG.
Thanks to John Cadwallader for his efforts, and to Music Radar and Yvonne for additional info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Blackmore, Gillan and Glover (Simper also) – all born 1945, all conceived in that second half of 1944 (post-D-Day) and very early 1945 when Britons finally knew for sure that the Third Reich would be beaten. Children of reassurance.
Jon was born a few years earlier in June 1941 which dates his conception smack-dab in the middle of the Battle of Britain – his parents must have trusted those Hurricanes and Spitfires stemming the Luftwaffe tide: a child of hope.
March 1st, 2022 at 23:25I bet he’s pissed off that Gillan’s lyrics are on his sign!
March 2nd, 2022 at 14:55Well done….Cheer’s to you Mr. John! 🎸
March 2nd, 2022 at 17:22A woeful embarrassment in wording, ‘rock superstar’. Also the lyrics, is that the best they could come up with. Some people just don’t get it. Might as well have some of the ‘Smooth Dancer’ lyrics. Kudos for getting a plaque implemented, however it seems a wasted opportunity! Cheers.
March 2nd, 2022 at 20:31@2: i guess notation to the highway star solo would make it the sign look too busy 😉
March 2nd, 2022 at 20:37Don’t nitpick – they at least tried. “Smoke on the Water/A Fire in the Sky” rings a bell even with people who have otherwise little or no knowledge of rock – that is what a plaque is supposed to do after all, garner attention.
“i guess notation to the highway star solo would make the sign look too busy”
LOL – brilliant remark!
March 2nd, 2022 at 23:48Ritchie Blackmore ; Perhaps these words, ‘Celebrated’ or ‘Distinguished’ Deep Purple & Rainbow Guitarist. Or even just DP for the pre Rainbow career. There are other ways to word it. As we are aware Blackmore is one very media shy, private & successful musician from that era still to this day. He isn’t a so called ‘superstar’. As I stated previously, kudos for getting a plaque for a musician of wonderful calibre, a problem with that word. It isn’t the end of the world though. Nit picking indeed & possibly splitting hairs also. I should have better things to do with my life, he he he. Oh for the want of a quill & parchment. Cheers.
March 3rd, 2022 at 09:12Aren’t those Roger’s lyrics?
March 3rd, 2022 at 10:18I think it should read “Ritchie Blackmore – inspired prankster, riff merchant extraordinaire, gifted soloist & medieval minstrel”. That sums him up. Ok, add “banjo player” to it. ; – )
March 4th, 2022 at 04:24Ritchie would plaque honouringt destroyer as well as the cameraman at California Jam … 🙂
March 5th, 2022 at 03:58They didn’t even mentioned this plaque in their poorly design web site https://www.blackmoresnight.com/ … Not even a simple “Thanks”… I think they do not like the idea that much.. Is a very good intention to be honest, but I rather see a Blue Plaque instead.. IMHO
March 7th, 2022 at 17:16I wonder, Why did they mention only the month and not the exact date of his birth?
March 7th, 2022 at 23:06Should have got a committee to design it, i.e. … all of the above.😀
April 1st, 2022 at 18:58Can anyone tell me if this is located at allendale nursing home in Weston? I want to visit it this Sunday.
April 2nd, 2025 at 15:52Marcel, contrary to what you read almost everywhere wrongly, the provisional maternal unit where Ritchie was born in 1945 (Weston-Super-Mare was home to significant Royal Air Force facilities in WWII, however I fear that flying and learning to fly was not all the RAF pilots did there and the local female populace was of course man-starved …)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Weston-super-Mare
was Allandale (not Allendale).
Go here
https://historicengland.org.uk/research/results/reports/8239/Weston-super-MareNorthSomerset_HistoricalandArchitecturalDevelopmentVolume2
and look under Beach Road to read:
“There was a small roller skating rink by c1910 (location?). By 1910, the lodging house Saint Helier’s had 5 sitting rooms and 14 bedrooms. The Grand Central Hotel opened in 1925. In 1928, the Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company’s Beach Garage and
Omnibus Station (designed by their staff architect, H.A. Penney) was built on the site of Belvedere (to the north of the Grand Atlantic Hotel). —> During the Second World War there was a small maternity unit at a house called Allandale. <— By 1953, nos 65-66 was a miners’ convalescent home. By that date there were 9 hotels in Beach Road, as well as a fire station at (or behind) nos 21-22. In the 1970s Etonhurst was demolished and in 1988 the bus station followed suit.
But you won't find an Allandale Maternal Home (the RAF boys and their reproductive organs have long gone) there today, rather what you want to look for on Sunday is:
Beach Lawns Residential and Nursing Home
67 Beach Road
Beach Front
Weston-super-Mare BS23 4BG
https://www.carehome.co.uk/carehome.cfm/searchazref/20002006BEAF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDfR7lZ20Vw
https://assets.change.org/photos/1/gu/jh/neGUJhlMhgMttAr-800×450-noPad.jpg?1647953028
Don't scare the senior citzens/patients there, good luck & we expect a comprehensive report here! Pics or you weren't there!
April 3rd, 2025 at 13:30Where are the promised pics, Marcel, we’re waiting?!
April 6th, 2025 at 12:21I think poor Marcel didn’t find it. 😑 His cell phone with the navigation app ran empty. 🤣
April 6th, 2025 at 20:26