Puriton
| Puriton | |
| Somerset | |
|---|---|
 St Michael and All Angels, Puriton | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST321415 |
| Location: | 51°10’12"N, 2°58’23"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 1,068 (2011) |
| Post town: | Bridgwater |
| Postcode: | TA7 |
| Dialling code: | 01278 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Sedgemoor |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Bridgwater & W. Somerset |
Puriton is a village at the westerly end of the Polden Hills in Somerset. The parish forms part of the Huntspill and Puriton Hundred and had a recorded population of 1,068 in 2011.
The local parish church is named after St Michael. A chapel on Woolavington Road was converted to a private house some 20 years ago.
In 1996 the village was described as "now becoming a rural commuter village".[1]
The village has a full range of facilities, such as a primary school, parish church, pub, post office, shop (general store and newsagent), butcher and hairdresser. It started to expand considerably in the 1960s and 1970s when new houses were built on former farm land, a former infilled stone Blue Lias quarry, Puriton Park, and on fields between the existing houses. The old Victorian school near the church was converted into homes and a new school built elsewhere. The Manor House was sold off in 1960 and four houses were built on its former tennis courts: the House is in multiple occupancy.
History
The village is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Peritone, meaning 'a Pear Orchard' or Pear farmstead'. The village had pear orchards and apple orchards until just after Second World War.
The Domesday Book records that the manor was held by the Church of St Peter's, Rome. Its parish church was St Michael's.
Just north of Dunball is Down End which is the site of Down End Castle, a motte-and-bailey castle,[2] which has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.[3]
A cement and lime works was at the western end of the Polden Hills, at Dunball. It used Blue Lias stone quarried at several locations in the village, transported to the works on narrow-gauge railways. This area of the Polden Hills was used for quarrying stone and lime burning from 1888 until 1973.[4] Quarrying may have taken place on the hillside as early as the 15th century.[4]
In 1910 exploration for coal discovered a seam of rock salt 120 ft thick, 600 ft beneath the mudstones. Between 1911 and 1922 this was commercially extracted by dissolving the salt with water pumped down bore holes, which was brought to the surface and evaporated in boiling pans.[5]
A German pilot was captured in one of the village's pear orchards after his aeroplane was shot down and he landed by parachute.[6] The orchards have now all gone, houses having been built on them. The last was Culverhay, which at one time had housed both a dairy and a cider press. One working farm is still in existence.
In 1941, ROF Bridgwater, an explosives factory, was opened mid-way between Puriton and the adjacent village of Woolavington.[7] The factory lies mostly in Puriton parish, with a small portion in Woolavington. Several million gallons of water per day were extracted from the nearby artificial River Huntspill.[7] Now the extraction rate is probably very much lower, and most, if not all, of the water is returned after use, after clean-up through a reedbed sewage treatment plant. A large explosion occurred at the factory in the early 1950s, with workers dying or being injured. Its current owners, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, closed it in spring 2008.
The village's stone quarries began to go out of use during Second World War. The cement and lime works, next to both the King's Sedgemoor Drain and the Bristol and Exeter Railway line, became run down by the early 1960s and was demolished when the M5 motorway was built through part of the site.[8] The church, and the boundary walls, in the old part of the village, are built of blue lias blocks. Puriton Park was built over part of the site of an in-filled blue lias quarry, at the eastern end of the village.
The headquarters of the British Institute for Brain Injured Children, or BIBIC, has been in a former 19th century house, Knowle Hall, since 1983.
Parish church
The parish church is the Church of St Michael and All Angels, a church built in the local blue lias stone. It has an early-13th-century tower, with the remainder dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. It has been designated a Grade I listed building.[9]
Puriton Party in the Park
Puriton hosts its own Party in the Park. It has been run annually since 2010 and takes place in the middle of August, typically from 2-10pm.[10] The afternoon session from 2-6pm hosts a variety of stalls, rides and games for children and an arena in the field where groups from the village and beyond are invited to perform.[11]
The evening session from 6-10pm turns the field into a music concert, allowing local bands and artists the chance to perform on a lorry that has been transformed into a stage. In 2014, Michael Eavis (founder of the Glastonbury Festival) opened the evening's entertainment,[12] alongside Puriton's own Dolly Pardon (A spoof of the finale act from Glastonbury Festival 2014, Dolly Parton).
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Puriton) |
- The Somerset Urban Archaeological Survey: Down End, by Miranda Richardson
References
- ↑ Hollingrake, Charles and Nancy (1996). A Desk Top Survey on Land Proposed for Roadside Services on the A39 Puriton Hill, Puriton, Bridgwater. Glastonbury: Charles and Nancy Hollingrake (Report No. 78), on behalf of Lyndon Brett Partnership, page 11.
- ↑ Gathercole, Clare. "An archaeological assessment of Down End" (PDF). Somerset Extensive Urban Survey. Somerset County Council. p. 5. http://www1.somerset.gov.uk/archives/hes/downloads/EUS_DownEndText.pdf. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1019291: Motte with two baileys immediately east of Bristol Road, Down End
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dunning, Victoria History, Volume VI, p.183.
- ↑ Briggs, Derek (2006). "Salt of the earth". in Hill-Cottingham, Pat; Briggs, Derek; Brunning, Richard et al.. The Somerset Wetlands: An ever changing environment. Wellington, Somerset: Somerset Books. p. 66. ISBN 978 0 86183 432 7.
- ↑ Brown (1999). P. 179.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Williams (1970), pp 238-239.
- ↑ "Metal Manufacture". Industrial Somerset. Somerset County Council. http://www.somerset.gov.uk/somerset/cultureheritage/heritage/info/periodsummaries/industrialsomerset/industrialsomersetpage2.cfm. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1344664: Church of St Michael and All Angels
- ↑ "Puriton's Party in the Park this month". Bridgwater Mercury. 10 August 2010. http://www.bridgwatermercury.co.uk/leisure/whats_on/8322109.Puriton_s_Party_in_the_Park_this_month/. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
- ↑ "Puriton Party in the Park". Somerset County Gazette. 16 August 2014. http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/events/Bridgwater/987741.Puriton_Party_in_the_Park/. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
- ↑ "Michael Eavis to open Puriton Party in the Park". Burnham Weekly News. 13 August 2014. http://www.burnhamandhighbridgeweeklynews.co.uk/leisure/whats_on/11406580.Michael_Eavis_to_open_Puriton_Party_in_the_Park/. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
- Brown, Donald (1999). Somerset V Hitler: Secret Operations in the Mendips 1939-1945. Newbury: Countryside Books. ISBN 1-85306-590-0.
- Dunning, R.W. (1992). History of the County of Somerset, Volume VI, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-722780-5.
- Dunning, R.W. (2004). History of the County of Somerset, Volume VIII, The Poldens and the Levels. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 1-904356-33-8. Link to online copy.
- Lawrence J.F. (2005) (revised and completed by Lawrence, J.C.). A History of Bridgwater. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. Ltd. ISBN 1-86077-363-X.
- Short, Audrey, Boldero, Joy and Luckman, Ian (1980). Puriton Patchwork: Parish of Puriton through the ages. Puriton: published privately.
- Williams, Michael (1970). The Draining of the Somerset Levels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-07486-X
