Place:St. Decumans, Somerset, England

A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of St. Decumans from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72: "DECUMANS (St.), a parish in Williton [registration] district, Somerset; on the coast, at the Watchet terminus of the West Somerset railway. It contains the town of Watchet, the chapelry and workhouse of Williton, and the hamlets of Eagrove, Lyddymore, Doniford, Ridon, Stickland, Wibble, Wibblegate, Highbridge, Watering-Place, Five Bells, Churchtown, Whitehall, Stream, Yard[e], Timwood, Hayne, Bardon, Tomblands, Shelves, and part of Washford. "Post town, Watchet, under Bridgewater. Acres: 4,281; of which 520 are water. Rated property: £7,176. Population: 3,196. Houses: 522. The property is all in one estate. Orchard-Wyndham was the seat of the late Earl of Egremont. Williton was the residence of Sir Reginald Fitz-Urse, one of the murderers of Thomas à Becket. "The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Value: £134. Patron: the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The church is large; occupies a commanding site; and has ancient monuments of the Wyndhams, and the tomb of the late Earl of Egremont. The churchyard contains an ancient cross. The [perpetual] curacy of Williton is a separate benefice. There are chapels for Independents, Baptists, and Methodists, and charities £77." St. Decumans (#25 east on map) was an ancient parish and a separate civil parish until 1902 when it was separated into the towns of Watchet (#W) (which at this point became an urban district), the parish of Williton (#33 east), and the hamlets of Washford and Yarde which were places in the parishes of Old Cleeve (#21 east) and Nettlecombe (#19 east) respectively. The hamlet of St. Decumans was absorbed into Williton parish. On the Ordnance Survey map of 1900 St. Decumans is shown within the bounds of Watchet, but it extended to have boundaries with West Quantoxhead, Bicknoller, Sampford Brett, Nettlecombe, and Old Cleeve.

Governance

St. Decumans was originally a parish in the Williton and Freemanors Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Somerset. From 1894 until 1902 it was part of the Williton Rural District. It was then broken up as described above.

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. Watchet and Williton joined the non-metropolitan West Somerset District which covered northwestern Somerset.

In 2019, for economic reasons, the West Somerset District joined with the Taunton Deane District to become the Somerset West and Taunton District.

Research Tips

• GENUKI page on St. Decumans.
• An article on St. Decumans, including Watchet and Williton 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