Chew Magna, Somerset

Historical Description

Chew-Magna, a village and a parish in Somerset. The village stands on an affluent of the river Avon, 3 miles W of Pensford station on the G.W.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Bristol, and was once a borough and a market-town. The parish includes the tith-ings of Northelm, Stone, Knowie, and Sutton, and both it and the village are sometimes called Bishops-Chew. Acreage, 5014; population of the civil parish, 1481; of the ecclesiastical, 985. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells; value, £600 with residence. The church is Decorated English, and has been restored. The perpetual curacy of Dundry is a separate benefice. There is a chapel of ease at Bishop-Sutton. There are also Baptist and Wes-leyan chapels. Sutton Court, Chew Court, Manor House, and Highfields are the chief residences.

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 Chew Magna from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Chew Magna (St. Andrew))

Maps

Online maps of Chew Magna 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.