Place:Dowlish Wake, Somerset, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Dowlish Wake (#13 on map) is a civil parish and a small village in Somerset, England, 2 miles (3 km) south of Ilminster and 5 miles (8 km) northeast of Chard in the South Somerset district. It had a population of 277 in the UK census of 2011. The village is situated on Dowlish Brook, which is crossed by a 17th-century packhorse bridge and a road bridge from the 18th century. There was a flour mill on the brook in the 17th century, but only the Mill House survives today. The village was a centre for the manufacture of silk and there are the remains of several limestone quarries. It was on the route of the Chard Canal, which was built around 1835–40 and intended as part of a ship canal between the Bristol Channel and the English Channel, but this was never built.

Landmarks

The hamstone Norman Church of St Andrew includes fragments of the chancel dating from the 13th century, and has a tower and aisles added in 1528. Most of it was rebuilt in 1861–62. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.[17]

Speke Hall, next to the church, was used, from its erection by William Speke (probably a descendant of John Speke (landowner), as the day and Sunday school from 1840 to 1949.

The hamstone Manor House has 11th-century origins, with the present building being from all periods from the 15th century. Known as Dowlish Farm by 1688, it was held by the Wake family from the 12th century. It passed through marriage to the Speke family at the end of the 15th century; they sold it in 1920.

The Dower House dates from 1664 and was leased to female members of the Speke family in the later 18th century, giving it its name.

The village is the home Perry's Cider Mill, manufacturers of several award-winning ciders. It occupies a 16th-century barn that may originally have been used as a smithy.

John Hanning Speke

The Manor was the home of the family of John Hanning Speke who took part in three expeditions to Central Africa from 1854 to 1862, the last two in search of the source of the Nile. Speke discovered Lake Victoria and maintained that it was the source of the White Nile. On his third expedition, Speke identified Ripon Falls, the outlet of Lake Victoria, as the source of the Nile; this was confirmed by Henry Morton Stanley in a later expedition. Speke was killed in Neston Park in Wiltshire by his own gun while hunting with his cousin on 18 September 1864. A memorial to Speke, with a lifesize bust, is in the church at Dowlish Wake where he is buried.

Research Tips

• GENUKI page on Dowlish Wake.
• An article on Dowlish Wake from the Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset], produced by The Institute of Historical Research.
• 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