Cannington, Somerset
Historical Description
Cannington, a village, a parish, and a hundred in Somersetshire. The village stands 2 miles SSW of a bend of the river Parret, and 3½ NW by W of Bridgewater railway Station. It dates from ancient times, was known to the Saxons as Caninganmaersees, had a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the time of King Stephen by Robert de Courcy, and is supposed to have been the birthplace of the Fair Rosamond of ballad notoriety. The parish includes also the hamlets of Edstock and Beer, and impinges some distance on the Parret. Post, money order, and telegraph office under Bridgewater. Acreage, 4076; population, 1147. Cannington House is the seat of the Clifford family; Brymore, the seat of the Bonverie family. Kit Hill in the vicinity has an altitude of 1067 feet. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells; value, £240, in the gift of the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The church was part of the Benedictine nunnery, is Later English and fine, and contains tombs of the Cliffords. It was restored in 1885. There are a Roman Catholic chapel, a Congregational chapel, and almshouses.
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 | Cannington St. Mary | |
Hundred | Cannington | |
Poor Law union | Bridgwater |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Cannington 1559-1812, Somerset is available to browse online.
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Somerset Archives & Local Studies, have images of the Parish Registers for Somerset online.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Cannington from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Cannington (St. Mary))
Maps
Online maps of Cannington 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.