Lympsham, Somerset
Historical Description
Lympsham, a village and a parish in Somerset. The village stands on the river Axe, 3 miles S of Weston-super-Mare, and 2 from Bleadon station on the G.W.R., and has a post office under Weston-super-Mare; money order and telegraph office, East Brent. Acreage of parish, 2082; population, 420. The manor belonged formerly to Glastonbury Abbey. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Bath and Wells; gross value, £620. The church is Later English, in good condition, and consists of nave, N aisle, and chancel, with porch and tower. There is a Wesleyan chapel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Somersetshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Lympsham St. Christopher | |
| Hundred | Brent with Wrington | |
| Poor Law union | Axbridge |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1737; marriages, 1773; an earlier register of marriages is said to have been in existence till 1780.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Somerset Archives & Local Studies, have images of the Parish Registers for Somerset online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Christopher (parish church)
The church of St. Christopher is an ancient building of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, north aisle, south porch and a fine western tower with a low arcaded parapet, altered in the 19th century, and bold double buttresses, terminating in four massive pinnacles, and containing a clock and 6 bells: on the south window is the date 1633, a record of repairs made at that date: the north aisle, which has a finely carved and moulded roof and a good parapet with pinnacles, appears to have originally been a chapel connected with the adjoining grange, probably used by the monks of Glastonbury as a summer residence; the ceiling is a fine example of Perpendicular timber work: on the north side is a walled-up entrance and a tabernacled niche, and at the east end is a piscina: the nave roof is coved and enriched with good bosses, and below the wall plate are six grotesque heads, perhaps belonging to an earlier roof: the east window is filled with modern stained glass, the west window and the heads of all the others are filled with stained glass, and there is also a memorial east window in the north aisle: the font, a work of the 12th century, with zigzag ornament, is a relic of an earlier church. The church was reseated in carved oak in 1894 at a cost of £965, and now affords sittings for 340 persons.
Methodist
Wesleyan Chapel
There is a Wesleyan chapel, rebuilt in 1902, and seating about 200 persons.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Lympsham from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Lympsham (St. Christopher))
Maps
Online maps of Lympsham are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Somerset papers online:
- Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette
- Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser
- Western Gazette
- Wells Journal
- Somerset County Gazette
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Somersetshire, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.