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Bruton in Somerset County England History and GeographyBRUTON, a parish in the hundred of BRUTON, county of SOMERSET, comprising the market town of Bruton, the chapelry of Weeke-Champflower, and the tythings of Discove and Redlynch, and containing 2076 inhabitants, of which number, 1858 are in the town of Bruton, 12 miles (S.E.) from Wells, and 110 (W. by S.) from London. This place, which takes its name from the river Bri, or Bru, that rises in the adjoining forest of Selwood, was distinguished, prior to the Conquest, for an abbey founded by Algar, Earl of Cornwall, in 1005, for monks of the Benedictine order, upon the ruins of which William de Mohun, in the reign of Stephen, erected a priory for Black canons; this was raised into an abbey in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., by William Gilbert, the prior, by whom it was almost rebuilt: it was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and its revenue, at the dissolution, was £480. 17. 2.: the remains have been recenlty converted into a parsonage-house. The town is pleasantly situated at the base of a steep hill, and along the side of a romantic combe, watered by the river Bru, which affords a plentiful supply of water, and over which is a stone bridge: it consists principally of one clean and well paved street; the houses are, in general, neatly built. The manufactures were once considerable but are now confined to stockings and silk; and the latter, which formerly afforded employment to upwards of four thousand persons, has been reduced to comparative insignificance. The market is on Saturday: the fairs are, September 17th and April 23rd. The townhall is a spacious building; the lower part is used for the market, and the upper part contains a large court-room, wherein the petty sessions for the division are held. The living is a perpetual curacy, with the perpetual curacies of Redlynch and Weeke-Champflower annexed, in the archdeaconry of Wells, and diocese of Bath and Wells, endowed with £600 private benefaction, £400 royal bounty, and £1700 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of Sir R. C. Hoare, Bart. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a spacious and handsome structure in the later style of English architecture; the tower at the west end is most elaboratcly decorated, embattled, and crowned with pinnacles: there are two porches, over the entrance into which are the arms of some of the abbots; the tomb of prior Gilbert is preserved in the church, and a neat marble monument has been erected to the memory of Captain Berkeley. There is a place of worship for Independents. The free grammar school was founded in the reign of Edward VI., by Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of London; Sir John Fitzjames, Chief Justice of England; and Dr. John Edmonds, by deed dated September 24th, 1519, who endowed it with estates producing £350. 5. 10. per annum: it has four exhibitions, of £50 per annum each, to either of the Universities. An hospital for the maintenance and clothing of fourteen aged men, the same number of women, and sixteen boys, the boys being also educated and apprenticed, was founded about 1618, by Hugh Sexey, Esq., auditor of the household to Queen Elizabeth and James I., who endowed it with estates producing £1381. 11. 2½. per annum; the men and women have a weekly allowance of six shillings each, and a bushel of coal; and with the boys, on leaving school, is given an apprentice fee of £22, of which £12 is paid to the master on the signing, and £10 on the expiration, of the indenture. The chaplain has a stipend of £40 per annum; the schoolmaster, a salary of £42 per annum for teaching, and seven shillings per week each for boarding the scholars; the treasurer and steward receives £32, and the surgeon and apothecary £20 per annum. The buildings, which were completed about 1636, form a spacious quadrangle near the west end of the town, and are in the Elizabethan style of architecture: in one of the wings is a neat chapel, with a school-room below it; and over the entrance to the hall is the bust of the founder: the eastern side of the quadrangle was rebuilt about twenty-five years ago. The benevolent founder of this hospital, the two Fitzjames's, and Dampier, the celebrated navigator, were born here. Many marine shells and fossils have been dug up at Creech Hill, where was an encampment, and on which also a beacon was formerly erected; and at Dishcove, a small hamlet in the parish, the remains of a tessellated pavement were discovered in 1711. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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