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Milverton
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Milverton
Dating back to the Domesday survey, Milverton boasts some beautiful Georgian houses and a superb church. Milverton is a village and parish, situated five miles west of Taunton in the Taunton Deane district. The village has a population of 1,385. It has two pubs, The White Hart and The Globe, a convenience store, and a hairdressers. Milverton is one of the largest villages in Somerset and it is well worth exploring for its many fine Georgian buildings. It retains its medieval street pattern around the church which is on a central prominence. The name Milverton was perobably taken from the old Town Mill to the north of the village. Although the present building dates from the 18th century (and was still used for grinding corn well into the 20th century), there has been a mill on the site since Saxon times. Milverton Court and The Organic Trading Company is a late 16th century house and farm and now houses The Organic Trading Company, that grows and imports organic herbs.
The Domesday survey of 1086 shows that Milverton was then a substantial place with one of only seven recorded markets in the whole of Somerset. The village seems to have gone into some decline after this period. The woollen industry became, for centuries, the mainstay of the population. It was a cottage industry, with many spinning wheels and looms being worked throughout the village. The weavers of Milverton came to be renowned for their serges, druggets and baizes. As there were no textile mills in Milverton the products of the cottagers were sent to the mills of the Were (later Fox) family at Wellington for finishing and distribution. These were prosperous times again, and the resulting houses now grace the streets of the village, the best of which is North Street.
The rolling landscape to the west of Milverton is formed by an outcrop of the resistant Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds that caps the hills in a roughly north-south line through Ash Priors, Milverton and Langford Budville. This Triassic conglomerate contains, amongst other materials, limestone cobbles and pebbles. In the 17th century there was growing awareness that the application of lime on acid soils improved crop yields. Much of the soil in west Somerset, having developed on non-calcareous rocks, tends towards acidity and therefore a number of limekilns and quarries such as Pooles Limekiln and Quarry were established along this outcrop. The limestone was sorted by hand from the non-calcareous stones and burnt with coal (in alternate layers) to produce the lime. It is thought that the burning of lime for agricultural use declined in west Somerset towards the end of the 19th century as crushed limestone and artificial fertilisers became available.
The Church of St Michael is interesting. The oldest remaining part is the lower section of the tower which is thought to be 12th century. Much of the rest is 14th and 15th century, though the church was extensively altered during restoration work in 1849-50. It is predominantly built of red sandstones and breccias (which contain angular fragments of rocks found in the Brendon Hills), with Ham Stone dressings. Inside there is a Norman font, but most interestingly there is an unusually large collection of carved benches (ends, fronts and backs) which date from 1540-60. Once thought to have been carved by itinerant Flemish wood carvers, they are now considered to be the work of local craftsmen.
The stately church in Milverton stands on a rise of ground, slightly askew from its plain Exmoor tower. The poppy-heads on the bench-ends were carved by the band of Flemish craftsmen who travelled through Somerset in 1540, stopping at different places to work. There is a Norman font. The vicarage dates from 1500, and is supposed to have been built by Cardinal Wolsey. Milverton, like the rest of the county, was formerly a centre of the wool trade. For a place of its size (the population numbers 1,400), it appears to have seen little history. In 1480 a certain John of Milverton attacked Wicliffs doctrine.
In 1773, Thomas Young was born there. He was a famous scientist and Egyptologist, the founder of physiological optics and one of the first men to interpret the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta Stone. He died in 1829.From Milverton a lane strikes north to Halse, which has a small church standing in a beautifully-kept churchyard, and commands a view of the Quantock Hills. There are also a Norman font, a fine rood-screen, medallions in the spandrel of the arcade and a painted wall south of the nave. The lane continues through Heathfield, whose church contains mural monuments with kneeling figures and a carved oak pulpit. From there it joins the road to Norton Fitzwarren, and so returns to Taunton, after an excursion into country scarcely altered since our ancestors dwelt there.
Milverton is one of the largest villages in Somerset and it is well worth exploring for its many fine Georgian buildings. It retains its medieval street pattern around the church which is on a central prominence. Its name was perhaps taken from the old Town Mill to the north of the village. Although the present building dates from the 18th century (and was still used for grinding corn well into the 20th century), there has been a mill on the site since Saxon times.
The Domesday survey of 1086 shows that Milverton was then a substantial place with one of only seven recorded markets in the whole of Somerset.The village seems to have gone into some decline after this period.The woollen industry became, for centuries, the mainstay of the population. It was a cottage industry, with many spinning wheels and looms being workedthroughout the village. The weavers of Milverton came to be renowned for their serges, druggetsand baizes. Once thought to have been carved by itinerant Flemish wood carvers, they are now considered to be the work of local craftsmen.
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Contributed by: Jenny Wlikins
