Place:Exmoor, Somerset, England

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Exmoor (#5 on map) from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72: "EXMOOR, a quondam extra-parochial tract, now a parish, in the [registration] districts of Barnstaple and Tiverton, and partly in Devon but chiefly in Somerset; round the head-streams of the rivers Exe and Barle, 13 miles NW of Dulverton, and 16½ NE by E of Barnstaple [railway] station. Post town: Exford, under Taunton. Acres: 19,270. Real property: £4,073. Population: 323. Houses: 62. "Some parts are enclosed and cultivated; but most are wild, moorish, and upland. The northern border lies on the Bristol channel, and forms there a coast remarkable for general elevation and for very deep vales or glens; and the interior has summits ranging, in altitude, from 1,100 feet to 1,668 feet. The highest ground is Dunkerry-beacon. Woods anciently covered the whole area; and are said to have been consumed at the ancient adjacent iron-works of Exford. Druidical rites were practised in the woods; and many rude remains of ancient times, sepulchres, small standing - stones, earth-works, and small circular entrenchments, supposed to be Druidical, still exist. Hardy sheep and horses are bred on the hill pastures; and a solitary red deer may sometimes be seen browsing on the wastes. An act, passed in the 55th year of George III., ordained that the forest should be made a parish as soon as its population should so increase as to require a church; and that act took effect in 1856. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Value: £150. Patron: the Crown. The church was opened in 1857."

Simonsbath

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

Simonsbath is a small village high on Exmoor in the English county of Somerset. It is the principal settlement in the Exmoor civil parish, which is the largest and most sparsely populated civil parish on Exmoor, covering nearly 32 square miles (83 km2) but with a population, at the time of the 2001 census, of 203 in 78 households, reducing to 156 at the 2011 Census. The River Exe rises from a valley to the north, and the River Barle runs through the village and is crossed by a triple-arched medieval bridge that was extensively repaired after floods in 1952.

The small hamlet developed in the 19th century, when more houses were built along with St Luke's Church (1856), providing a centre for the population. The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building. At around the same time as the construction of the church, a mine was developed alongside the River Barle. The mine was originally called Wheal Maria, then changed to Wheal Eliza. It was a copper mine from 1845–54 and then an iron mine until 1857, although the first mining activity on the site may be from 1552. A restored Victorian water-powered sawmill in the village, which was damaged in the floods of 1992, has now been purchased by the National Park and returned to working order.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Simonsbath.

Governance

The parish was part of the hundreds of Williton and Freemanors and South Molton, two of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the counties of Somerset and Devon respectively. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Dulverton Rural District.

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. Exmoor joined the non-metropolitan West Somerset District in 1974.

In May 2019, the districts of West Somerset and Taunton Deane merged into a single district named the Somerset West and Taunton District. The new district is not a unitary authority, and has not taken any county level functions from Somerset County Council. West Somerset covered a largely rural area, with a population of 35,300 in an area of 740 square kilometres (290 sq mi) and is the least populous non-unitary district in England. Taunton Deane's population was over 100,000, but it was still not considered a large enough district to be kept on its own.

Research Tips

• GENUKI page on Exmoor.
• 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
• The Victoria History of the Counties of England – History of the County of Somerset, produced by The Institute of Historical Research, covers Williton and Freemanors Hundred Hundred in Volume V. However, the parish of Exmoor has been omitted (perhaps because it was an extra parochial area).