THE HISTORY OF STOKE ST. MARY

12th century Codex Wintoniensis.

Only determined travellers, two centuries ago, found their way to the village of Stoke St. Mary. Main roads did not disturb it, and the single lane leading west to Taunton followed a difficult course across the Vale. Long isolation was finally ended early in the nineteenth century, when local roads were greatly improved. But even today the traces of a solitary and less thriving past have not entirely vanished: the thirteenth century parish church is small and simple to an exceptional degree, and the village street contains few of the large farmhouses which, elsewhere in the Vale, are a conspicuous feature.

Accidents of the soil explain much. Though the parish of Stoke St. Mary - anciently covering 923 acres - lies partly in the Vale of Taunton, it has an unlucky share in the famous Vale lands, and it is unluckier still in its other lands on Stoke Hill. The lias clay of the hill is some of the most difficult soil in the county; and if earlier generations valued the lonely high ground of their parish, they did so not because of its fertility, but for regular crops of coppice wood, for limestone to supply local kilns and the building trade, and for the beauty of the wooded hill-slopes, rising steeply from the village below. Man's struggle with this varied landscape began many centuries ago: an unfinished Iron Age hill fort at Netherclay and scattered traces of Roman settlement are proof of that, and several local farms, including those at Broughton and Greenway, probably have very early origins. Only in the 9th century, however, did the landscape first enter the light of recorded history. A Saxon charter dated about the year 854, tells how a West Saxon king called Aethewulf gave lands at 'Stoc' to the minster church of Taunton, mother church of the Vale. The landmarks which defined the minster's new estate were carefully recorded, and included the 'halgan wylle', or holy spring, which still exists on Stoke Hill, and a great ditch which survives impressively on Stoke St. Mary's southern border. The landscape of the medieval village was made complete in the 13th century when the present stone-built church began to rise. It was evidently founded as a daughter of the more ancient church ar Ruishton, and like its neighbour was one of several churches which belonged to Taunton Priory, successor to the Saxon minster. From its foundation in about 1120 until its dissolution in 1539, Taunton Priory was the chief spiritual focus for the people of the Vale: to the Priory they looked for priests to take services in their churches, and to the Priory they were carried after death to be buried in its cemetery. A resident priest to serve both Ruishton and Stoke was provided by the prior following an agreement made in 1308. And though almost none of Stoke's medieval priests are known by name, their home, the 'priests house', was a familiar part of the village until in 1963 it was demolished as unsafe. It stood diagonally opposite the church, on a site acquired for the parish in 1452-3, and was later to serve successively as the church house (a kind of village hall) and the poor house. A priest called William Salmon was living there in 1532, the year in which he witnessed the will of John Luckis of 'Mary Stoke'. By 1535, Mr. Salmon had been replaced by John Stotte, whose existence in the priest's house was sustained by a meagre stipend from the prior of £6 13s 4d a year. John Stotte lived to see some of the changes which, in the course of the 16th century, transformed the church from a place of Catholic worship to a setting for the services of the Anglican prayerbook. Far-reaching though such changes were, they did not make St. Mary's any less a centre for village life. The outside of the church tower, after all, remained an excellent place for playing fives, and the churchyard provided a fine setting for a game of skittles (both recorded in 1634). Throughout centuries of change, agriculture never ceased to be Stoke St. Mary's major occupation; but in the course of the 17th century, the cloth industry came to occupy a place hardly less important. Spinners and weavers, worsted-combers, tailors and clothiers are all represented in the 17th century records of the village; and fields in the parish called Tuckers, Fullands, and Rack Orchard still commemorate stages in the cloth-finishing process. Limeburners, as well, find a frequent place in village history at this period, most of them working quarries on Stoke Hill. And for the quenching of thirsts after work at the loom, by the lime kiln, or in the fields, cider-making increasingly replaced the brewing of beer as a major domestic occupation. In 1629, Thomas Atkins and other villagers were selling cider made from their own apples, thus laying the foundations of a cider-making tradition which by the 19th century had earned the parish a reputation for producing 'some of the best cider in the kingdom'. Religious and political controversy, the echo of national events, took its place as another major element in the pattern of 17th century village life. When Thomas Pickering became curate in 1612, he was soon at odds with puritan members of his congregation, reporting in 1613 that several villagers preferred to hear puritan sermons in Taunton than to attend their parish church. He angrily denounced some of the rebels during one Sunday service, calling William Ellis a 'mased ideot'; but even when Ellis and other ringleaders had been excommunicated, they found a ready welcome at Thurlbear church from the more sympathetic curate, William Jennings. The puritans flourished locally, especially after the sufferings inflicted on Taunton by Royalist armies in the Civil War, and when monarchy was restored in 1660, thousands in the Vale were soon active dissenters from the Anglican Church. In 1669, up to 100 Presbyterians were gathering regularly to worship in Stoke St. Mary, numbering among their meeting-places the homes of Thomas Procter, who lived on Stoke Hill, and William Doble, who had recently acquired the Stoke Court estate. Little wonder that Stoke St. Mary, like all its neighbours, was eager to support the Protestant Duke of Monnmouth in 1685, adding seven men to the rebel army which marched that summer over Longwater Bridge on the southern borders of the parish. Concerns more wordly than religion dominated the village in the 18th century. Members of the parish vestry, meeting in 1705 in Joan Booby's alehouse rather than the church, found themselves responsible not only for care of the church fabric, but for mending the roads and relieving the sick and poor. In 1708, a payment of £1 3s 9d helped Joan Brown and her illegitimate daughter when they caught smallpox, and the following year there were regular payments to provide young Thomas Gully with 'scooling'. Edward Foord's illness in the winter of 1736 found the parish officers ready to provide joints of beef and mutton; and in 1737 they even supplied the necessary 2d to buy Andrew Philpott a wedding ring. Those who still troubled to make their way to St. Mary's church at this period found the village stocks to greet them in the churchyard, and a tiny white-washed building crowded with box pews. The Burridge family, who inherited the Stoke Court estate of William Doble in 1708, dominated the chancel in their own baize-lined pew, while at the west end stood the gallery, home for the village musicians. By 1776, only eight parishioners were regular attenders at the infrequent communion services held in the church, a reflection, perhaps, of the example set by some of the parish clergy. Charles Russell appointed Rector in 1768, left curates to do the work while he spent most of his days far off in Bath, a victim of the gout. For a remarkable 65 years the parishioners tolerated their absentee rector, and only when a dispute over tithe payments arose in the early 19th century was there serious quarrelling: the 'modus' board erected in the church in 1805 still commemorates the agreement which was finally reached. The character of Stoke St. Mary itself changed rapidly in the early 19th century. As roads leading to the village were improved so its 'picturesque' attractions were discovered. New gentry reached the parish to replace the ruined Burridges, farming squires of Stoke St. Mary for over 100 years. During the 1850's, Captain Thomas Patton, R.N. (no relation to the American general) acquired both Stoke House and Stoke Court, together with a large farming estate, and for the next 60 years his family's name was to be as closely linked with Stoke St. Mary as was the name of Portman with neighbouring parishes to the south. Captain Patton preferred to live at his mansion in Bishops Hull, but allowed Stoke House to be used by a succession of his children, including his son Colonel Henry Patton. As commander of the Volunteer Reserve, Colonel Patton achieved local fame for the mock battles he organised at Orchard Portman; and among his many services to the community, he became first chairman of the Parish Meeting in 1894, and first president of the Stoke St. Mary and Thurlbear Cricket Club, founded at The Half Moon one April evening in 1910. Both in character and appearance, Stoke St. Mary has changed more rapidly in the last 20 years than at any time since the early 19th century. Gone forever is the close-knit agricultural community which survived even 50 years ago, and for few now is the village a place both for living and working. Further new houses have appeared, and the population has grown accordingly. But in spite of change, Stoke St. Mary remains a place of striking beauty, and probably thrives today as much as it has ever done. Eleven hundred years after its name was first recorded, the future for the village seems bright.

Source: Text by Tom W. Mayberry and M. V. McArthur (1987)