Template:Wp-Yeovil-History

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Archaeological surveys have yielded Palaeolithic burial and settlement sites mainly to the south of the modern town, particularly in Hendford, where a Bronze Age golden torc (twisted collar) was found.

Yeovil is on the main Roman road from Dorchester to the Fosse Way at Ilchester. The route of the old road is aligned with the A37 from Dorchester, Hendford Hill, Rustywell, across the Westland site, to Larkhill Road and Vagg Lane, rejoining the A37 at the Halfway House pub in the Ilchester Road. The Westland site has evidence of a small Roman town. There were several Roman villas (estates) in the area. Finds have been made at East Coker, West Coker and Lufton.^[1]

Medieval times

Yeovil was first named in a Saxon charter dated 880 as Gifle. It derives from the Celtic river-name gifl "forked river", an earlier name of the River Yeo.

The estate was bequeathed in the will of King Alfred the Great to his youngest son Aethelweard. It was recorded in the Domesday Book as Givele, a thriving market community. The parish of Yeovil was part of the Stone Hundred. After the Norman Conquest, the manor, later known as Hendford, was granted to the Count of Eu and his tenant Hugh Maltravers, whose descendants became Earls of Arundel and held the lordship until 1561.^[2] In 1205 it was granted a charter by King John. By the 14th century, the town had gained the right to elect a portreeve.^[1]

The Black Death exacted a heavy toll, killing about half the population.^[3]

In 1499 a major fire destroyed many wooden, thatch-roofed buildings in the town. Yeovil suffered further fires in 1620 and 1643.^[1]

Ownership

After the dissolution of the monasteries the lord of the manor was the family of John Horsey of Clifton Maybank from 1538 to 1610 followed by the Phelips family until 1846 when it passed to the Harbins of Newton Surmaville.^[2] Babylon Hill across the River Yeo to the south east of the town was the site of a minor skirmish, the Battle of Babylon Hill, during the English Civil War, which resulted in the Earl of Bedford's Roundheads forcing back Sir Ralph Hopton's Cavaliers to Sherborne.^[2]

Development

In the 1800s Yeovil was a glove-making centre, whose the population expanded fast. In the mid-19th century it became linked to the rest of Britain by a complex of railway lines, with competition between the broad gauge lines of the Great Western Railway (GWR) and the standard gauge lines of the London and South Western Railway (LSWR). In 1853 the Great Western Railway line was opened between Taunton and Yeovil.

The town's first railway was a branch line from the Bristol and Exeter Railway near Taunton to a terminus at on the western side of the town, which opened on 1 October 1853. As an associate of the GWR, this was a broad-gauge line. The GWR itself opened Yeovil Pen Mill railway station on the east side of the town as part of its route from London on 1 September 1856, extended to Weymouth on 1 January 1857), and the original line from Taunton connected with this. The LSWR route from London reached Hendford on 1 June 1860, but a month later the town was by-passed by an extension of the LSWR to Exeter. A new station at was provided south of the town from where passengers could catch a connecting service to Hendford. On 1 June 1861 passenger trains were withdrawn from Hendford and transferred to a new, more central, Yeovil Town railway station.

In 1854, the town gained borough status and had its first mayor. In the early 20th century Yeovil had around 11,000 inhabitants and was dominated by the defence industry, making it a target of German raids during World War II. The worst bombing was in 1940 and continued until 1942. During that time 107 high-explosive bombs fell on the town, 49 people died, 68 houses were totally destroyed and 2,377 damaged.

Industrial businesses developed round the Hendford railway goods station to such a degree that a small was opened on 2 May 1932 for passengers, but the growth of road transport and a desire to rationalise the rail network led to half of the railway stations in Yeovil being closed in 1964. First to go was Hendford Halt, closed on 15 June along with the line to Taunton, then closed on 2 October. Long-distance trains from Pen Mill were withdrawn on 11 September 1961, leaving only with a service to London, but the service between there and Pen Mill, the two remaining stations, was also withdrawn from 5 May 1968.^[4][5]

As a former centre of Britain's leather industry, the town is post-industrial in character. Journalist John Harris, for instance, described the towns Taunton, Yeovil and Bridgwater as a "post-industrial, hardscrabble place that contain[s] 19 of the council wards in the 20% of English areas classed as the most deprived."