Charlcombe
| Charlcombe | |
| Somerset | |
|---|---|
 St Mary Magdalene's Church, Charlcombe | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST752674 |
| Location: | 51°24’20"N, 2°21’26"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 422 (2011) |
| Post town: | Bath |
| Postcode: | BA1 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Bath & NE Somerset |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
North East Somerset |
Charlcombe is a small village just north of Bath in the north of Somerset, and within the Hampton Hundred. The wider parish has a population of 422 and includes the villages of Woolley and Langridge, both in the Bath Forum Hundred.[1][2]
History
Charlcombe is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 under the name "Cerlecume", meaning in Old English "valley of the ceorls (freemen or peasants)".[3]
From about 1720 until the early 19th century Woolley was the site of a gunpowder mill.[4]
In 1848 the village had a population of 84, and covered 523 acres.[5]
Woolley, in the parish, is one of only 52 Thankful Villages for having lost no soldiers during the First World War,[6] and one of only 14 doubly thankful villages that also did not lose any soldiers either in Second World War.[7]
Miscellany
Every year in February and March, Charlcombe Lane is closed by the local council to enable frogs and toads to cross the road in safety. During this period local residents and volunteers go out at dusk, the time of greatest movement, collecting them in buckets and depositing them on the other side of the road, allowing them to continue their journey safely towards a lake in the Charlcombe valley on a tributary of the Lam Brook.[8][9]
Parish church
The parish church, St Mary, is a mediæval church, of the 12th century. It is said to have been at one period the parish church of the city of Bath. The church is a Grade II* listed building.[10] There was believed to be a holy well in the grounds.
According to tradition it was formerly the mother church of Bath, and received an annual acknowledgment of a pound of pepper from the abbey there.[5]
Reference in literature
The village of Charlcombe is mentioned in letters by Jane Austen as being "sweetly situated in a little green valley, as a village with such a name ought to be".[11]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Charlcombe) |
References
- ↑ Reverend John Collinson (1791). The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset. 1. pp. 97. ISBN 978-1-171-40217-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=EosgAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA97.
- ↑ "Somerset Hundreds". GENUKI. http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SOM/Miscellaneous/. Retrieved 9 September 2011.
- ↑ Mills, A.D., Oxford Dictionary of Place Names (Oxford 1991, revised 1996)
- ↑ Buchanan, Brenda J. (2005). "Bath's Forgotten Gunpowder History: The Powder Mills at Woolley in the Eighteenth Century". Bath History Journal X: 72–96. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305073019/https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/Media/CHC%20Images/Vol%2010%20-%2005.%20Buchanan%20-%20Bath%27s%20Forgotten%20Gunpowder%20History%20-%20The%20Powder%20Mills%20at%20Woolley%20in%20the%20Eighteenth%20Century.pdf.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "'Charlbury — Charlwood', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848) pp. 549–54.". British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=50866#s2. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
- ↑ Norman Thorpe, Tom Morgan (June 2005). "The Thankful Villages". http://www.hellfirecorner.co.uk/thankful.htm. Retrieved 3 January 2007.
- ↑ Kelly, Jon (11 November 2011). "Thankful villages: The places where everyone came back from the wars". BBC News Magazine (BBC News). https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15671943. Retrieved 12 November 2011.
- ↑ "Valentine help for love-struck toads". Bath & North East Somerset Council. Archived from the original on 20 July 2012. https://archive.today/20120720074222/http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/media/news/2007/January/Pages/Valentinehelpforlovestrucktoads.aspx. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ↑ "Valentine help for love-struck toads". BBC Somerset News. 16 January 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/4617152.stm. Retrieved 9 February 2007.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1214255: Church of St Mary
- ↑ "Letters to her sister Cassandra Austen, 1799". Letters of Jane Austen – Brabourne Edition. http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/brablet3.html#letter19. Retrieved 9 February 2007.