Stoke sub Hamdon, Somerset
Historical Description
Stoke-under-Hamdon (popularly, Stoke-under-Ham), a parish, with East Stoke and West Stoke villages, in Somerset, 1½ mile from Montacute station on the G.W.R., and 5½ miles WNW of Yeovil. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. Acreage, 1380; population, 1726. There is a parish council consisting of nine members. The manor belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall. Hamdon Hill, on the boundary, is separately noticed. Glove-making is carried on. Remains exist of Roman entrenchments. The Roman Fosse Way skirts the N of the parish. There is an old house in the village which formerly was a college of Chantry priests. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells; net value, £130 with residence. The church is in mixed architecture and cruciform, with an embattled tower. There are Congregational and Wesleyan chapels, and a working men's institute.
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 | Stoke-Under-Hamdon St. Denis | |
| Hundred | Tintinhull | |
| Poor Law union | Yeovil |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1558.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Somerset Archives & Local Studies, have images of the Parish Registers for Somerset online.
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary the Virgin (parish church)
The church of St. Mary the Virgin is a fine cruciform building of stone, in the Norman, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, nave, transepts, north porch and an embattled tower rising over the north transept and containing 5 bells: the chancel arch is Norman: there are three fine piscinæ, two of these being double; in the chancel are two lowside windows and a fine recumbent effigy of John Strode, gent. ob. 1725, and the south transept contains the effigy of a priest vested, and has nine small stained windows, erected in 1877, by John Winter Walter esq. in memory of his wife and children: in the north transept is a memorial window, erected in 1881, by the Rev. Frederick Shepherd M.A. vicar 1875-84, in remembrance of his wife: the pulpit is a fine specimen of carved oak of the Jacobean period: a new organ was placed in the north transept in 1904: there are sittings for 300 persons.
 |  |
St. Nicholas
The iron church of St. Nicholas, erected in 1905, in the centre of the village, on a site given by His Majesty King George V. then Prince of Wales, serves as a mission church to the parish church, and has 250 sittings.
Congregational
Congregational Chapel
The Congregational chapel, erected in 1867, together with a school, at a cost of £1,973, is a building in the Gothic style, with a tower and spire; the chapel will seat 540 persons; adjoining is a structure erected in 1903, at a cost of £300, for class meetings.
Methodist
Wesleyan Chapel
There is a Wesleyan chapel with school.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Stoke sub Hamdon from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stoke-Under-Hamdon (St. Denis))
Maps
Online maps of Stoke sub Hamdon 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.