Place:Peasedown St. John, Somerset, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Peasedown St. John (commonly referred to as just Peasedown) is one of the largest villages in Somerset, England. It is on a hilltop roughly 7km or 4.3 miles south-southwest of the city of Bath and used to be a coal mining village. When the last of the mines was shut in the 1950s it became a commuting village for Bath and, to a lesser extent, Bristol. It has expanded greatly since the 1960s and as of UK census of 2011 it had a population of over 6,446.

The present village of Peasedown St John is relatively modern. 'A place known by the name of The Red Post' was how the scattering of buildings was referred to in 1768, taking its name from the local Public House. The hamlet of Carlingcott in Dunkerton parish on the northwest edge of Peasedown is known to have existed before 1800, but the main modern development in the area began in the 19th century when the Somerset Coalfield was greatly expanded as the Industrial Revolution increased demand for coal across England. By 1841 there was still no discernible village, except a few cottages around the Red Post and a small number of buildings along what would become the Bath Road. The sinking of the Braysdown colliery in 1845 meant that accommodation had to be built for the enlarged workforce to work the new pit and expansion of the village was now inevitable. By the second half of the 20th century there were at least six collieries within 3 km (1.9 mi) of Peasedown, including Braysdown, Camerton, Dunkerton, Writhlington and Shoscombe.

The rapid growth of non-conformist religion across the North-Somerset Coalfield in the later 1800s and early 1900s was evident in Peasedown St John. There was a Primitive Methodist Chapel on the Bath Road (now Peasedown Methodist Church), Wesleyan Chapels in Braysdown Lane, New Buildings and Carlingcott, a United Methodist Chapel in Carlingcott (now Carlingcott Methodist Chapel), a Baptist Chapel on Eckweek Road and a Christadelphian Hall which still stands on Huddox Hill. The Church of England place of worship, dedicated to St. John, was built in 1876.

With the closure of the coal mines in the period up to the 1970s, and the growing popularity of out-of-town living, Peasedown rapidly became a commuter village for the cities of Bath and Bristol.

Governance

Although it was between 1850 and 1890 that Peasedown grew into being a distinct settlement, it was not until 1955 that it became a civil parish, having been divided for administrative purposes between the parishes of Camerton, Wellow and Dunkerton until that point. (#4, #8 and #17 on the Bath Rural District map.) Peasedown became part of Bathavon Rural District from 1955 until 1974.

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. In addition, this area of Somerset with the city of Bristol and part of Gloucestershire were declared a new county named Avon. Like other counties, it had non-metropolitan districts covering the more non-urban areas. The area directly south of Bristol and east to the border with Wiltshire was placed in the Wansdyke District, while the section west to the Bristol Channel was placed in the Woodspring District. The county of Avon only lasted until 1996. When it was abolished a slight restructuring of non-metropolitan districts occurred to allow those parts of Avon to return to Somerset and Gloucestershire. Peasedown St. John is now in the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset.

Research Tips

• St. John GENUKI page on Peasedown St. John.
• 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.
• Three maps on the A Vision of Britain through Time website illustrate the changes in political boundaries over the period 1830-1945. All have expanding scales and on the second and third this facility is sufficient that individual parishes can be inspected.

• Somerset Hundreds as drawn in 1832. This map was prepared before The Great Reform Act of that year. Note the polling places and representation of the various parts of the county.
• Somerset in 1900, an Ordnance Survey map showing rural districts, the boundaries of the larger towns, the smaller civil parishes of the time, and some hamlets and villages in each parish
• Somerset in 1943, an Ordnance Survey map showing the rural districts after the changes to their structure in the 1930s

• Maps provided by the National Library of Scotland are also very useful. This map is currently set to an area now in the Sedgmoor District as it existed in the late 19th century, but can be moved to anywhere in the county using a variety of background maps. There is a very good search facility.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has a group of pages of statistical facts for almost every parish in the county
• GENUKI gives pointers to other archive sources as well as providing some details on each parish. The emphasis here is on ecclesiastical parishes (useful before 1837)
• A listing of all the Registration Districts in England and Wales since their introduction in 1837 and tables of the parishes that were part of each district and the time period covered with detailed notes on changes of parish name, mergers, etc. The compiler has gone to a lot of work to provide this material. Respect his copyright.
• The FamilySearch Wiki for Somerset provides a similar but not identical series of webpages to that provided by GENUKI
• English Jurisdictions, a supplementary website to FamilySearch outlining local parish boundaries in the middle on the 19th century. The information provided is especially useful for establishing the relationship of the ecclesiastical parishes in large towns and cathedral cities.
• The Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset, produced by The Institute of Historical Research at the University of London is a scholarly website with articles tracing the history of individual parishes which are sorted into their hundreds, the early subdivisions of the county. It traces the ownership of estates and manors, describes the local church in detail, and usually provides a map of each parish. The volumes for Somerset are much more recent than those for other counties. It appears to be a work in progress, only covering about half the county so far. A map of the places covered in the series is given in Volume 6, but 3 more volumes have been published since then. If a parish is included there will be a note in its Research Tips.
• The Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
• The Weston super Mare Family History Society
• The Bristol and Avon Family History Society
• A list of all Somerset parishes with online transcripts of parish registers The size of Somerset makes this a huge project. If it does not yield what you are looking for, try getting in touch with the organizer with patience and politeness.
• Somerset Online Parish Clerk project home page
• A collection of West Somerset Parish Register Transcriptions are online courtesy of Martin Southwood