Place:Mendip District, Somerset, England

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

The Mendip District is a local government district of Somerset, England. The district covers a largely rural area of 285 square miles (738 km2) with a population of approximately 112,500, ranging from the Wiltshire border in the east to part of the Somerset Levels in the west. The district takes its name from the Mendip Hills which lie in its northwest. The administrative centre of the district is Shepton Mallet but the largest town by far is Frome.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, by a merger of

• the Glastonbury municipal borough
• the Wells municipal borough
• the Frome urban district
• the Shepton Mallet urban district
• the Street urban district
• Frome Rural District
• Shepton Mallet Rural District
• Wells Rural District
• part of Axbridge Rural District and
• part of Clutton Rural District

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Mendip.

Research Tips

Archives and Libraries

• 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. The Heritage Centre has an email address:archives@somerset.gov.uk.

• The Somerset County Council homepage has a 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)

• Old Maps Online has a further selection of local maps

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

• Each Library in Somerset has its own web page. The index page to libraries leads to each of the libraries along with the facilities to be found there.

• The Somerset pages of GENUKI contain a great amount of useful data and references to other websites. Some of the web links are not up to date.

• The four family history societies covering parts of Somerset are:

• Bristol & Avon FHS
• Somerset & Dorset FHS
• Weston super Mare FHS
• Friends of Somerset Archives