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THE HISTORY OF THURLBEAR |
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Three miles south of Taunton on the Staple Fitzpaine-Chard road, a signpost
points to Thurlbear. The lane runs through meadows; on the right lies a spring and a
cottage, Court Garden, later Church Farm and then the church of St. Thomas. Beyond is the
Tudor tithe barn and the school, opposite the large Victorian and the small modern rectories.
There are two hamlets in the parish, Winterwell and Badger Street, and these with a few
scattered farms and cottages constitute the village of Thurlbear. |
| The village of Thurlbear lies four miles south-east of Taunton at the point where the lias limestone of the Blackdown foothills gives way to the keuper marl of the Vale of Taunton Deane. An unfinished Iron Age hill fort on the wooded summit of Netherclay Hill, a mile (1.6km) west of St. Thomas's church, provides early evidence of human activity in and near Thurlbear, and fragmentary Roman remains have been found in the neighbouring parish of Stoke St. Mary. But the most conspicuous archaeological monument in the district is the Norman fortress at Castle Neroche, three miles to the south. there, from a commanding spur of the Blackdown Hills, the Count of Mortain may for a time have controlled the great West Country estates acquired by him at the Norman Conquest. |
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In Saxon times, as today, Thurlbear was composed of woodland and farms. As very little
outward change has come to Thurlbear in the last thousand years its history depends largely on
the ownership of the land, and on the reflection of national history on local life. From the time
of the making of the Domesday Book when the compilers made a brief record of the place called
Torlaberie - a name which means 'the hill with the hollow' - until 1400 the Manor was held by the
Montacute family who placed there many life tenants.
Thurlbear at its Medieval height may well have sustained an annual fair, and was still able to provide for the bishop and his retinue when they stayed in the village in 1350. By the close of the Middle Ages, however, it appears that the settlement near the church had greatly declined: perhaps local economic changes were the cause, perhaps decisions which concerned the most effective use of the land. Choosing at first to defy the omens, the villagers of the 15th century competed with neighbouring parishes to improve their church after the latest fashion. But the four costly bells which they hauled up the new west tower in about 1450 were destined before long to ring over the fields of a small and scattered community.
The Reformation years ended old associations and brought new names to the history of the village. When Taunton Priory was surrendered in 1539, its property at Thurlbear was already in the hands of the Carvanyells, a merchant family of Taunton. In the course of the next 70 years their place was taken by the Portmans of Orchard Portman who became owners not only of the Priory lands but of the manor as a whole, and for almost four centuries were to dominate the life of the countryside around.
Political and religious conflict was given full expression with the outbreak of the Civil War. Ill-disciplined troops from both sides frequently travelled the road from Chard to Taunton which crosses the parish. By the time the seige of Taunton was raised in 1645 the country around was said to gave been 'unpeopled' by the barbarity of the royalists. The memory of the hardships suffered then did much to foster the rise of non-conformity in the Vale. During the 18th century Anglican vigour ebbed low and in 1776 only 10 parishioners regularly received Holy Communion.
Inspired by the challenge of non-conformists, the Anglican Church slowly revived, and by 1851 it was reported that an average of 60 people attended Thurlbear's Sunday service in the morning, no fewer than 90 in the afternoon. The greatest influence for change in the parish came from the Revd William Lance, a man of strong and saintly character and an early leader of the High Church movement in Somerset. he was appointed curate in 1860, and during the 25 years that he remained at Thurlbear the church bells rang daily for morning prayer, and the fortnightly Communion services were sung whenever possible. The school which was opened in 1873 and is flourishing today, owed much to his early support.
Within living memory the choir and ringers still crowded into the rectory each New Year for the supper provided by the Revd. H. F. B. Portman, when singing and dancing continued late into the night and the bells rang. The Revd Portman died in 1924 and in 1944, following the death of the Fifth Viscount Portman, the family lands round Taunton were sold to the Crown Estate Commissioners, who have remained chief landowners in Thurlbear to the present day. The Portmans at first continued as patrons of the living, but in 1950 their historic link with the parish was finally broken when patronage was transferred to the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The civil parish of Thurlbear was amalgamated with Orchard Portman in 1933. The ecclesiastical parish survived until 1984 when it was joined with its neighbours to become part of the united parish of Staple Fitzpaine with Orchard Portman, Thurlbear and Stoke St. Mary. |
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Tom Mayberry, 'St. Thomas's Church, Thurlbear, Somerset' (1998) R. A. Sixsmith, 'The History of Thurlbear' (1957). Tom Mayberry, 'Thurlbear and its Church' (1983). |
