Banwell, Somerset Family History Guide

Banwell is an Ancient Parish in the county of Somerset.

Other places in the parish include: Westwick, Westwick and Waywick, Woolfords-hill, Yarborough, East and West Rolston, East Rolston, Knightcot, Towerhead, West Rolston, and Waywick.

Alternative names:

Parish church: St. Andrew

Parish registers begin:

• Parish registers: 1569
• Bishop’s Transcripts: 1606

Nonconformists include: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Wesleyan Methodist.

Adjacent Parishes

• Locking
• Wick St Lawrence
• Worle
• Kewstoke
• Puxton
• Hutton
• Christon
• Winscombe
• Cleeve

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

BANWELL, a village, a parish, and a subdistrict, in the district of Axbridge, Somerset. The village stands under Banwell Hill, at the NW extremity of the Mendip range, 3 miles SE of the Bristol and Exeter railway, and 4 NNW of Axbridge. It has a station on the railway, a post office under Weston-super-Mare, and two inns; and was formerly a seat of petty sessions. A fair is held at it on 18 January, or on the following Monday. A monastery was founded here by some early Saxon king; had for one of its abbots, Asserins or Asser, the biographer of King Alfred; was destroyed by the Danes, and afterwards restored; but seems to have given place to an Episcopal palace; and ceased to be monastic long before the dissolution of monasteries. A mineral well in the vicinity expands into a lakelet, drives two mills, and sends off a rivulet to the Bristol Channel near Woodspring priory. The parish contains also the hamlets of Knightcot, East and West Rolston, Towerhead, West wick and Waywick, Woolfordshill, and Yarborough. Acres, 4,829. Real property, £15,880. Pop., 1,853. Houses, 362. The property is much subdivided. Banwell-hill belongs chiefly to Captain Law, grandson of the late Bishop of Bath and Wells; and has an obelisk, erected by that prelate. The manor has belonged, since the time of Edward the Confessor, to the Bishops of Bath and Wells. A palace was built on it by Bishop Beckington, but went into neglect, and now is represented only by a large farmhouse and offices, called Banwell Court, and by a cottage ornée. Two remarkable caverns, discovered in 1824, and now so famous as to draw many visitors, occur on the skirts of Banwell Hill; the one, called the Stalactite cavern, presenting many beautiful specimens of translucent stalactites; the other, called the Bone cavern, found to have contained many bones of bears, buffalos, deer, wolves, foxes, and other animals, mingled with diluvium. Bowles depicts a geological crisis, at which he fancies the bones to have been deposited, in his poem of “Banwell Hill or “Days Departed.” The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Value, £702. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Bristol. The church is later English; and has a richly-carved screen, a finely sculptured stone pulpit, a circular font, and three brasses. There are a Wesleyan chapel, and charities £17.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

BANWELL (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union of Axbridge, hundred of Winterstoke, E. division of Somerset, 5 miles (N. N. W.) from Axbridge; containing 1819 inhabitants. The manor has been in the possession of the bishops of Bath and Wells since the time of Edward the Confessor, with the exception of the short reign of Edward VI.; one of them built an episcopal palace here, the remains of which, in the early part of the last century, were converted into a private residence, called Banwell Court. The park was subsequently divided into inclosures, which were assigned on lease for lives. Some of the leases, however, were lately bought up, and the ground disposed in a tasteful manner, by forming plantations, with drives conducting to pleasing and richly variegated prospects. The late Bishop Law, also, in 1827, erected a cottage ornée for his own accommodation, and that of the numerous visiters which the discovery of two caverns in the rock, one denominated the Bone, and the other the Stalactite cavern, has attracted hither. The parish comprises by measurement 5000 acres of land, of which the soil is fertile, and the substrata abound in mineral varieties; limestone and blue lias are quarried, and lead, iron, and copper ore were formerly worked to a very great extent. The manufacture of paper is carried on, affording employment to about 80 persons. The village is pleasantly situated under the Mendip Hills, in a vale watered by a copious stream issuing from a spring formerly in repute for medicinal properties, and from which the place is supposed to have taken its name. A fair for fat-cattle is held on the 18th of January. The Bristol and Exeter railway passes through the parish, in which a station has been established. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king’s books at £26. 6. 0½.; patrons and appropriators, the Dean and Chapter of Bristol: their tithes have been commuted for £225, and the vicarial for £702. The church is a fine specimen of the later English style, and contains a richly carved screen and rood-loft, a finely sculptured stone pulpit, and windows of stained glass. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. A monastery was founded at Banwell by one of the early Saxon kings, to the abbacy of which Alfred the Great appointed Asser, his subsequent biographer: it was entirely demolished in the Danish irruptions; and although restored, it never recovered its former splendour, and fell to decay several years before the general suppression of religious houses. The summit of a neighbouring eminence is crowned by a British earthwork, inclosing within its irregular rampart an area of about twenty acres; and about a quarter of a mile from this is an intrenchment nearly square, in the centre of which the ground is elevated in the form of a cross.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Parish Records

FamilySearch

Maps

Old maps of Britain and Europe from A Vision of Britain Through Time

Administration

• County: Somerset
• Civil Registration District: Axbridge
• Probate Court: Court of the Peculiar of Banwell
• Diocese: Bath and Wells
• Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 – None, Post-1844 – Axbridge
• Poor Law Union: Axbridge
• Hundred: Winterstoke
• Province: Canterbury