Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for ILMINSTER

ILMINSTER., a town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Chard district, Somerset. The town stands on the river Isle, the Chard canal, and the Chard and Taunton railway, 5 miles N by E of Chard. It takes its name from the river Isle and from its own church or minster. It was a place of some importance in the Saxon times. It was, at one period, more extensive than at present; and it has repeatedly suffered injury by fire. It comprises two long streets, from E to W and from N to S; and contains many good houses. It has a head post office, ‡ a railway station, a banking office, two chief inns, a fourarched bridge, a market house, a police station, a church, three dissenting chapels, a grammar school, a large national school, and charities £15; and is a seat of petty sessions, and a polling place. The church belonged to Muchelney abbey; is cruciform and decorated English, with chantry chapel and pinnacled central tower; and contains brasses and monuments of the Wadhams, one of whom was the founder of Wadham College, Oxford. The grammar school was founded in 1550, by H. Waldron, a native; includes a secondary school for the lower branches; and has £900 a year from endowment, and two exhibitions at Oxford. Markets are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays; a fair is held on the last Wednesday of Aug.; and brewing, flax working., glove making, cloth making, rope making and brick making are carried on. Samwayes, the theologian, was a native. Pop., 2, 194. Houses, 468.—The parish is divided into the tythings of Town, Horton, Hilcombe, Church, and Winterhay; and contains part of the hamlet of Crock-Street. Acres, 4, 050. Real property, £16, 419; of which £60 are in gas works, and £40 in the canal. Pop., 3, 419. Houses, 685. The manor, with Dillington House, belongs to John L. Lee, Esq. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Value, £500. * Patron, Mrs. Scott Gould.—The sub-district contains also fourteen other parishes. Acres, 20, 220. Pop., 7, 448. Houses, 1, 568.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Ilminster AP/CP       Ilminster SubD       Chard RegD/PLU       Somerset AncC
Place: Ilminster

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