Place:Woolverton, Somerset, England

Woolverton (#31 on map) is a former civil parish and a village in Somerset, England. The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography). "WOOLVERTON, a parish in Frome [registration] district, Somerset; 4 miles N of Frome [railway] station. Post town: Beckington, under Bath. Acres: with Chatley Hill, 736. Real property: with Road, £4,884. Population of [Woolverton] alone, 171. Houses: 38. The manor belongs to Mrs. Jones. The living is a rectory, annexed to Road. The church is good." Until 1933 it was a separate civil parish in Frome Rural District and had been part of the Frome Hundred. In 1933 Woolverton was absorbed into the civil parish of Tellisford (#25). (Source: Wikipedia.) [edit] Historic Descriptions [edit] 1822 - Somersetshire delineated by Christopher & John Greenwood A parish in the hundred of Frome, 5 miles N. from Frome; containing 30 inhabited houses, and as many families, 13 of whom are employed in agriculture. The church is a small structure, consisting of a nave and chancel, with a tower at the west end containing three bells. The living is a rectory, in the deanery of Frome, consolidated with Road Population: 1801: 169; 1811: 159; 1821: 184.

1875 - Somersetshire edited by Edward Robert Kelly

WOOLVERTON is a small parish and village, 119 miles from London, 4 north-by-east from Frome railway station, and 9 south-east from Bath, in the Eastern division of the county, Frome hundred, union and county court district, rural deanery of Frome, Wells archdeaconry, and diocese of Bath and Wells, situated on the Bath and Warminster road, on the west of the river Frome. The church of St. Lawrence is a small, old stone building, in good repair, and consists of chancel, nave, and south entrance porch, vestry at the south-western end, small tower and spire containing 2 hells: the church will seat about 80 people. The register dates from the year 1570. The living is a rectory, annexed to the rectory of the adjoining parish of Road, joint yearly value £660, with about 85 acres of glebe land, in the gift of, and held by, the Rev. William Samways Oke, B.A., of Wadham College, Oxford. The old rectory house is now (1875) being razed, and a new one will be substituted, at the cost of the rector. There is a school for boys and girls on the National system, also a Sunday school. E. T. Foxcroft, esq., is lord of the manor, and, with Mrs. Lloyd, of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, the chief landowner. The soil is light clay; the subsoil is clay. The chief crops are pasturage for dairy purposes. The acreage is 736, including Chatley Hill; rateable value, £1,440; the population in 1871 was 157.

1929 - Somerset by George Woosung Wade & Joseph Henry Wade

Woolverton, a village 4 m. N. from Frome. The church is a small, aisleless building with a diminutive W. tower and spire. The S. porch has a ribbed stone roof.

Research Tips

General Somerset Tips

• GENUKI page on Woolverton.
• 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

Other Resources

• Family and Local History in Frome
• Frome Yahoo Group
• Somerset Record Office
• Somerset Archives holdings for Parish of 'Woolverton'
• Frome Registration District Research Guide

Picture Gallery

Former Church

War Memorial

Turnpike Toll House