Henstridge (St. Nicholas)

HENSTRIDGE (St. Nicholas), a parish, in the union of Wincanton, hundred of Horethorne, E. division of Somerset, 10 miles (W. by S.) from Shaftesbury; containing 1146 inhabitants. It comprises by measurement 4204 acres, of which about one-third part is arable, and the remainder meadow and pasture, with the exception of 32 acres of common or waste land. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £13. 0. 2½.; patron, the Prebendary of Henstridge in the Cathedral of Wells. The great tithes have been commuted for £350, and the vicarial for £550; the impropriate glebe comprises 74 acres. Here was an alien priory, a cell to the Benedictine monastery of St. Sever, in Normandy: it was founded in the eleventh century, by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester.