History of South Petherton
By the South Petherton History Society
South Petherton has a population of something over 3,500. For comparison’s
sake, Somerton has nearer 6,000. It is classed as a village these days,
despite having been granted a Market Charter by King John in 1213. It was
a Saxon burgh, and markets, Court Leets and an annual fair were held in
South Petherton up until 1870.
The name ‘South Petherton’ probably derives from the nearby river Parrett.
The ancient British and the Saxons knew the river as ‘Pared’ (the ancient
British word for boundary). The Saxons added their word ‘ton’ when they
settled here, hence ‘Paredton’. Although every river forms a boundary,
this one was significant during the internecine wars of the 7th and 8th
centuries AD when the ancient British held the lands to the west, and the
Saxons held the land to the east of it.
There has been little systematic archaeological excavation in South Petherton.
Nevertheless, many surface finds have been identified and plotted, so we
know quite a lot about man’s presence here over thousands of years.
The earliest signs are palaeolithic flints found at Stoodham, the ridge
to the north east of the present village centre. This is also the site
of South Petherton’s earliest proper settlement, in the Iron Age. What
attracted people here must have been the easily-defensible, steep-sided
slopes and the far-reaching views over low land; also the fertile arable
land, nearby springs and of course being safe from seasonal flooding.
Stoodham is less than two kilometres north of the spot where a prehistoric
way crossed the River Parrett on its way between Ham Hill and the Blackdown
Hills. The ancient route and crossing – today it’s where the A303 crosses
the river - remained important for thousands of years until the 18th century.
The Romans’ main road to the south west of England for their troops and
commerce followed this route and was known as the Fosse Way. Where it crossed
the River Parrett they built a bridge which has been rebuilt several times
since then.
In a fertile area like South Petherton so close to the Roman Fosse Way,
it would be surprising if there were no evidence of Romano-British occupation.
There is plenty, with Roman finds regularly emerging in the topsoil all
over the parish, indicating the presence of several Romano-British farmsteads.
A large earthen vessel full of Roman coins was dug up in 1720 near the
line of the Fosse Way. At Stoodham, 1st to 4th century occupation is indicated
by numerous finds of pottery, worked flints, whetstones, coins and other
metal artifacts. In recent years fine Roman villas have been excavated
at Lopen and Dinnington, just a couple of miles away.
After the collapse of the Roman regime in Britain, the Stoodham settlement
seems to have lain unoccupied for some centuries. The next evidence of
activity is the Saxons. Until the 8th century, the River Parrett remained
the border between the Britons (to the west) and the Saxons (to the east).
The Saxon Chronicle of 680 said ‘Pedridia’ - probably South Petherton -
was the site of a major battle in which King Kenwalk finally defeated the
British. Ina, King of the West Saxons (688-726), drove the Britons from
their boundary on the River Parrett westwards to the Devon border, then
occupied a temporary ‘palace’ (or hunting lodge) in South Petherton until
he completed his new border fortress at Taunton. So it seems that the roots
of modern South Petherton lie in a Saxon royal estate which controlled
the crossing of the River Parrett.
There is documentary evidence for the existence of this royal estate. It
was called Sudperetone (the southern tun on the Parrett). Its size is unknown,
but it was of high status, had a minster church, a royal house or ‘palace’,
and a mint making Saxon coins 1017-1066 which boosted the Saxons’ proto-urban
market economy.
We lack evidence of any buildings of Saxon age, due to the absence of proper
excavation. But the location of the Saxon settlement is strongly indicated
by ditches which seem to have been the western and northern boundaries
of the Saxon settlement and include the parish church. Note – the Saxon
settlement is on the opposite side of the stream to the previous (Romano-British)
settlement. South Petherton remained in royal hands throughout the Saxon
period. There are several “-ton” place-names in the parish, recalling their
Saxon origins as estate villages.
By the Norman Conquest in 1066, ownership of the royal estate had fragmented
and the parish had been split into seven separate estates. This early fragmentation
affected the medieval development of South Petherton, since different components
of the settlement came to form part of several different manorial holdings.
The two most important were those of the Crown and the Minster.
The core of the royal estate of South Petherton passed directly to the
Conqueror and was still a Crown possession in the Domesday Book of 1086.
One large estate was the Minster holding, held by Alviet the priest. This
probably became the medieval Rectory Estate, which was held by Bruton Abbey
from the 12th century until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The earliest
parts of the fabric of the present parish church of St Peter and St Paul
date to the 12th century, probably building over the earlier Minster church.
In medieval times the parish church & market-place became the focus
of the town, which they have remained to this day. There are medieval strip
lynchets (called Mere Lynches) on the hillside between the Stoodham ridge
and the village.
In 1213 the town was granted a Charter for a market and fair by King John,
who also endowed a free chapel of St John. Today the location of this chapel
is unknown.
In the 13th century the Crown granted the main manor to the Daubeney or
De Albini family.
In the parish church there’s a stone effigy of Sir Philip De Albini (d
1294). The family were based at Barrington, but Sir Giles Daubney (whose
tomb is also here) built a hall-house in the late 14th century close to
the stream & church in South Petherton. This became the manor house.
Today it’s known as ‘King Ina’s Palace’. The Daubeney family collected
the rents but didn’t do much to develop the urban functions of South Petherton.
In 1483 the Daubeneys sided with the Duke of Buckingham in uprisings aimed
at seizing the crown from King Richard III. When this failed, they lost
their manor in South Petherton. They subsequently got it back, but in the
16th century, with increasing financial problems, they sold it. The manor
was split up, further complicating the landholding situation in South Petherton.
The manor house (‘King Ina’s Palace’) became the manor house of Wigborough
estate, several miles away.
South Petherton seems to have been fairly affluent at this time. In the
16th century Leland referred to South Petherton as a market town.
In the 17th century South Petherton was described as a market town of 300
families. Settlement expanded away from the medieval nucleus (the church
and market place) with the gentry building the "suburbs" of Palmer
Street, North Street and South Street. Cottages were built on the waste-land
in the quarrying area of Pitway to the east, and at Little Petherton to
the west. By 1630 many of today’s town streets and lanes, including the
four radial streets, were named on maps. At this time South Petherton was
prosperous from the wool and flax trade, and was generally stable. By 1650
South Petherton was regarded as one of 6 well-known market towns in Somerset.
Archaeological excavation in 2004 confirmed the location of a foundry where
the Sturton family made bronze cauldrons and skillets in the 17th and 18th
centuries which were traded all over the south of England.
However there were dramatic disturbances when South Petherton was affected
by Civil War actions. Troops of both sides were in the town in 1644 and
the church was damaged. In 1645 Parliamentary forces occupied the town
after the Battle of Langport.
Prior to his Rebellion in 1685, the Duke of Monmouth is reputed to have
stayed briefly at South Petherton trying to raise support for the rebellion.
Nine of South Petherton’s young men subsequently fought with Monmouth at
the Battle of Sedgemoor; two were later tried and condemned by Judge Jefferies
at Taunton Assizes and hanged from a beam in a gateway in St James’s Street.
From the 17th century the town’s modest prosperity was based on its commercial
role, also on quarrying, brick making, and cloth manufacture. This continued
into the late 18th and 19th centuries, though cloth manufacture was largely
replaced by sailcloth and then leather- working.
Religion in South Petherton
By 1672 there were active non-conformists in the town. They built a Presbyterian
Meeting house (called ‘Old Meeting House’) in 1705 and had adopted Unitarian
doctrines by the 1730s. This congregation grew and split for doctrinal
reasons, building other chapels elsewhere in the town.
In 1776 the assistant curate of the parish church, Thomas Coke, met John
Wesley and was fired up with the new Non-conformism. His enthusiasm was
not shared by the South Petherton gentry who encouraged his congregation
to drive him out of office ‘with a peel of bells & a barrel of cider
in the streets’ on Easter Sunday 1777. He was later ordained by John Wesley
at Bristol and became Superintendent to the Methodist Mission in the USA.
Today his home in St James’s St bears a blue plaque.
Methodism slowly caught on in South Petherton. By 1809 there were enough
Methodists to build a proper chapel in North Street. During the century
their numbers increased and they built a bigger church in 1881 closer to
the village centre; this is the Coke Memorial Methodist Church, named in
memory of Thomas Coke.
In the 1770s the town was said to contain “nothing remarkable”. The Pitway
area (east of the centre) was further developed in the 18th century and
had rope-making amongst other manufacturing. In the 19th century the railway
arrived in Martock. Nation-wide the demand for agricultural products (especially
soft fruit) increased and South Petherton’s market gardeners made the journey
daily to the railway. The narrow lane down the hill from Pitway and across
wet ground to Martock became the busiest and most economically important
route into and out of South Petherton. The hill beyond Pitway was dangerously
steep for heavily-laden horse-drawn wagons, so work was done to lessen
its gradient. Pitway became quite ‘industrial’ with rope-making, stone-
and clay-quarrying, brick-making, a limekiln, and later the town’s gas
works. To the west of the town, Little Petherton expanded to house agricultural
workers. All over the town the cottage industry of glove-making flourished
until well into the 20th century.
The population of South Petherton increased in the first half of the 19th
century. At this time many town centre buildings were rebuilt or given
new facades on top of earlier structures.
Expansion continued out of town along the major roads, with development
restricted to narrow strips, due to the economic importance of the orchards
and farms behind.
As the value of agricultural produce declined in the 20th century and the
railway line through Martock closed, the old Fosse Way / A303 made a come-back
as the major access road serving South Petherton. In the 20th century a
sanatorium was built at Pitway; this is shortly to be replaced by a modern
Community Hospital. Residential development increased as housing became
more profitable than farming. Housing has been built over many former farmyards
and orchards. Many houses in 1960s and 70s were built of reconstituted
stone (Bradstone) which was of consistent quality when the quarry-tips
of Ham Hill stone were being re-worked and producing insufficient good-quality
building stone. A small estate of co-operative self-build, wooden, chalet-style
houses was built in 1997 on the edge of Stoodham, opened by Paddy Ashdown
MP. Since the 1990s when most of South Petherton became a conservation
area, new houses have been built in vernacular style, faced with hamstone
or brick, like the large “Glebelands” estate currently under construction
to the east of the town.