•  Ilminster, Somerset

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In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Ilminster like this:

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. ...

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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.

Ilminster through time

Ilminster is now part of South Somerset district. Click here for graphs and data of how South Somerset has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Ilminster itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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