Burrington, Somerset

Historical Description

Burrington, a village and a parish in Somerset. The village stands amid romantic scenery, at the northern skirt of the highest part of the Mendip Hills, 5 miles NE by N of Axbridge, and 5 from Winscombe station on the G.W.R. It has a post office (R.S.O.); money order and telegraph office, Blagdon. Acreage of parish, 2019; population, 409. A romantic hollow leads from the village up the Mendips, and is flanked by ribbed masses of mountain limestone. A descending cavern, at the side of this, about a½ of a mile from the village, was discovered in 1795 to contain about fifty human skeletons, supposed to have been entombed here by the ancient Britons, and discovered afterwards to contain bones of horses, sheep, and other animals, supposed to have taken refuge in it after it ceased to be a place of sepulture. An earthwork, called Burrington Ham, occurs on a hill farther up, and is thought to have been a scene of Druidical rites. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells; net value, £124 with residence, in the gift of the parishioners. The church, of Early Perpendicular date, was restored in 1856 and again in 1884, and faithfully reproduced upon the original lines.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Somerset Archives & Local Studies, have images of the Parish Registers for Somerset online.

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 Burrington from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Burrington (Holy Trinity))

Maps

Online maps of Burrington 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.