DISCLOSURE: This page may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission.
UK Genealogy Archives logo

Brompton Regis (St. Mary)

BROMPTON REGIS (St. Mary), a parish, in the union of Dulverton, hundred of Williton and Freemanners, W. division of Somerset, 5 miles (N. E.) from Dulverton; containing 875 inhabitants. This place anciently constituted a hundred; and in the reign of Henry II. a priory was endowed by William de Say, for Black canons, and dedicated to St. Nicholas: it was an appendage of Glastonbury Abbey, and continued till the Dissolution, when its revenue was £98. 14. 9½. About two miles to the south of the church are some remains of this establishment, called Barlynch Priory; and in the burial-ground have been discovered several stone coffins, containing skeletons. The parish is bounded on the south-west by the river Exe, which receives many mountain-streams, all stocked with trout. It comprises about 8000 acres, of which a considerable portion is uninclosed moorland, abounding with black game; and in the woods are great numbers of the wild red-deer peculiar to this country, for the hunting of which a subscription pack of hounds was formerly kept. The surface is diversified with hills and valleys, richly wooded with coppices of oak and hedge-rows of beech, and abounding in romantic scenery; the vales are watered by the river Had Yeo. There are quarries of good building-stone. A weekly market and two annual fairs were granted to the lord of the manor, Sir Thomas de Bessilles, Knt.; the market has long since fallen into disuse, but the fairs are still held, in May and Oct., for cattle and sheep. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £12. 5. 7½.; patrons, the Master and Fellows of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; impropriators, Trustees of various parishes. The rectorial tithes have been commuted for £176, and the vicarial for £421. 15.; and there is a good glebe-house, with about 30 acres of land; also an estate in another parish, belonging to the vicarage. The church has a curiously carved screen, separating the nave from the chancel. Three Roman tumuli are visible on an adjacent eminence; and at a mount called Hadborough, near the western extremity of Haddon Hill, Roman coins have been found.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

Advertisement

Advertisement