EACH week in the Free Press we look back at what made the news 150, 100, 50 and 25 years ago. Here is a sample of the items featuring in the This Was The News column this week.

150 years ago – July 3rd 1869

Gas was coming to Minehead. The tender of Mr Bowen, of St Neot’s, was accepted for the engineering of the Minehead gas works, and that of Mr John Pearse, of Minehead, for the building. The engineer stated that the town would be lighted by gas by October 1.

100 years ago – July 5th 1919

After a long absence, the four-horsed coach ‘Lorna Doone’ was again plying daily between Minehead and Lynton, taking the place of the charabanc that had been used for two or three summers. The coach had been completely renovated and was looking very smart, and the coachman and guard were in scarlet liveries.

50 years ago – July 5th 1969

It was the 125th anniversary of the founding of the YMCA by 12 men including George Williams, who was sent to London after he upset a hay cart on his father’s farm at Ashway, Dulverton. Such awkwardness in a country lad was not to be given a second chance, so he was apprenticed to a draper.

25 years ago – July 8th 1994

Signs of an Iron Age village, dating back to 600BC and once occupied by an ancient Celtic tribe, were revealed by an archaeological study of Exmoor’s Horner Wood. A separate Iron Age enclosure and an Anglo Saxon or medieval settlement were also discovered by upland archaeology expert Robert McDonnell.