Place:Athelney, Somerset, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Athelney is located between the villages of Burrowbridge and East Lyng in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, England. The area is known as the Isle of Athelney, because it was once a very low isolated island in the 'very great swampy and impassable marshes' of the Somerset Levels. Much of the Levels are below sea level. They are now drained for agricultural use during the summer, but are regularly flooded in the winter.

Athelney is around 6 miles from North Petherton, where the Alfred Jewel (an Anglo-Saxon ornament dating from the late 9th century) was discovered in 1693.

Athelney is famous for being the refuge of King Alfred the Great from the Danes before the Battle of Ethandun in 878, and the site of a monastery he founded after his victory.

end of Wikipedia contribution

There is nothing to say that Athelney was even a hamlet, much less a village.

Research Tips

• The Lyng GENUKI page gives dates of availability of parish records (births, marriages and deaths) and Poor Law Unions.

• The Somerset Heritage Centre (incorporating what was formerly the Somerset Record Office and the Somerset Local Studies Library) can be found at its new location at Langford Mead in Taunton. It has an online search facility leading to pages of interest, including maps from the First and Second Ordnance Survey] (select Maps and Postcards from the list at the left, then enter the parish in the search box).
  The Heritage Centre has an email address: archives@somerset.gov.uk.

• Old Maps Online has a further selection of local maps. Some of these do not expand sufficiently to identify rural places.

• A Vision of Britain has a wide selection of articles of local interest.

• A History of Britain Online is a compilation of gazetteers which may provide more information about very small places which are missing from Wikipedia. In the case of Somerset it refers to A History of the County of Somerset by R. W. Dunning (editor), published as part of the Victoria County History series in 2006.

• A collection of West Somerset Parish Register Transcriptions are online courtesy of Martin Southwood