the Somerset Spiess Website

Welcome to our Web Site where you can review the art works in our gallery showing the pictures and paintings available or Xmas Cards, handmade over the past 50 odd years. You can now also view some of Tony’s Architectural Competition entries submitted over past years.

From this website you can go to a link taking you to Tony’s other webpages. His food blog all about our recent food adventures and our favourite local food online sources, to his blog showcasing the good or bad buildings we are presenting as our souvenir to the C21   or to his blog exploring a radical new political agenda to make democracy immediate, meaningful and relevant to us the ordinary citizen. 

At long last Tony can now begin to showcase some of his 3D modelled CAD   architectural projects developed in the past and what he is currently working on.

About Ourselves

We are Tony and Anna, a retired couple living in rural Somerset, where we brought up three boys. They have long flown the nest and are have successful lives and careers in Stockport, Exeter and Cambridge. In 2019 we celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary with a trip to Bhutan

Tony had a Swiss father who later naturalised, and an Essex mother, while Anna comes from a German farming family that had to leave behind their farm lands in what is now Poland, to became refugees in West Germany.

Anna left Germany and secretarial work, with her friend, to practice her English for a few weeks. The best work option was nursing at the ‘only’ hospital in London, St Something, Hampstead. Liked what she saw, stayed, trained at Paddington General Hospital, where she got the Gold Medal for her year, met Tony and the rest is history. Her nursing life, initially free-lance, ended as a part-time night nurse looking after the elderly. Preparation for the tasks ahead.

Tony, born in London, trained at Hammersmith College of Art and Building, gained his Diploma in 1969 and Registered as an Architect in 1973. After three years in Maiduguri, NE Nigeria, returned to the West Country and had a varied career in Local Government, Private and Commercial offices, on a very wide variety of, but mainly smaller, projects. Pursued by recessions in the Building Trade, the enforced periods of unemployment were opportunities to explore other design challenges.

Our three sons are:

Reynard recently married to partner Hazel, works in Manchester as a Experimental Officer, preparing the mass spectrographs for post-doctorate research. Hazel, was an Environmental Pollutant Control Officer, suffers from MS and is currently employed as a Legal Trainee following a respite in her condition. Both are keen green environmentalists, don’t own a car, travel by public transport and Reynard daily cycles the 6 miles to work.

Alden, now divorced from his ex-wife Kelly, still has regular weekly time with his sons Beren and Lowell. Works in Cambridge as a Product Owner for startup company developing holographic application. Lives in Fen Drayton.

Garin with his chinese born wife ‘Michelle’, daughter Melody and son Felix, works as Science teacher. They have relocated to Exeter where Garin now teaches in state school, unfortunately without a sixth form. ‘Michelle’ speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, was an Electronic Engineering teacher at a school in Shanghai, China, now works as a mathematics class assistant/teacher at a primary school in Exeter.

Tony’s Origins

On my father’s paternal side, formerly citizens of Hemberg SG, we can trace our ancestors back to Kaspar Spiess (b 1794) from Kappel SO. My GGDad and GGGDad were both only children. Linking up with a Kaspar Spiess of Kappel SO descendant would be great.

On my father’s maternal side we can trace back from Fridericka nee Lei back to Hansjakob Ley (b 1730), and have contact with family descendants.

On my mother’s paternal side we can trace back to agricultural labourer Michael Everett (b 1795) of Chappel, Essex, and probably two previous generations of Michaels, though the records are unclear. The maternal line through Amy nee Key (b 1847) had a very hard start to life and descended from small farmers, Jonathan Key (b 1774) of Runwell, Essex.

On my mother’s maternal side we can trace back to a Richard Pearson (b 1776), an inn keeper, but have been unable to find any records to reveal his origins. On the maternal side we can trace back through three generations of farriers /vets from Lush Fletcher (b 1831) back to Thomas (b 1786) of Tillingham. It would be wonderful to link up with other descendants of Lush.

Anna’s Origins

Anna came from a very wealthy farming village, Rösnitz, of about 1,100 inhabitants, reputed to have 16 millionaires in the 1910’s, a German protestant enclave in a loyally RC area. After WWII, as part of the general rewriting of Europe’s boundaries, they had to abandon their farms and became refugees in what remained of West Germany and settled in Sendenhorst. As such all the family documents were lost, but the survivors have collaborated in recording the history of the village, which Anna is translating into English, and there are various recordings of verbal recollections which give a lot if insight into those troubled times.

Taking all those historical and personal memories and recollections she has wove them into a easily readable ‘factional’ novel. The novel is called “the Saga of Rose-Ville” with an ISBN of 978-1-3999-3394-0. It is a self-published on demand hardback book via Lulu and can be purchased here: https://www.lulu.com/shop/anna-spiess/the-saga-of-rose-ville/hardcover/product-6zdnq9.html?q=Saga+of+Rose-Ville&page=1&pageSize=4

Her maternal Lamches are said to have been able to trace their ancestors back to the C15 but earliest record we have is Friedrich, born 1843

Of her paternal Grittners the earliest record is of Matthes, born around turn of C19.