Another adventure at hand........the exploration into family roots in Somerset County. Andrea has done some research, but Janet has gathered the most information, having worked on this for the past several years. The goal was to drive to the towns of Somerton and South Petherton and just get a feel for the places, particularly checking out the primary churches. The 'roots' go back to the 15th century, but the most detailed information comes from the early 1800's. I will let Andrea add some details here.
We are staying in Bruton, which is also in Somerset County, so the driving should not be too much of a strain other than the narrow back county roads!
Somerton is a town and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It gave its name to the county and was briefly, around the start of the 14th century, the county town, and around 900 was possibly the capital of Wessex. This was where we spent the morning. It is a quaint, but fairly active, town with a very nice historic center where the main church is located.
South Petherton is distinctive for the traditional hamstone construction of many of its buildings. In 2005 South Petherton was awarded ‘Somerset Village of the Year’ in a national competition
We took a lot of pictures in both Somerton and South Petherton so that we could send them to Janet and Suzanne to make sure they could get a feel for the 'sense of place' here. Both towns were quite picturesque and wonderfully maintained. It was fun for Andrea (us both) to walk through these towns with so much history and family association.
We woke to another sunny morning. We enjoyed a nice breakfast buffet in the restaurant. We really like how small, cozy and unusual this place is!
Beautiful views on the morning drive
Just a glimpse of what we needed to navigate......the left side of the road going through the 'roundabouts' that the British love so much! It was a two person team effort!
The roads were actually quite reasonable here, but never any space to pull off if you wanted to stop.
We are not sure where (or if) to write about the family background details. It may be too much minutia for the blog, but suffice it to say that we found multiple references to several families that we were looking for.......in the main church as well as in war memorials in town. Pretty amazing. Maybe we can add some quick notes below.
We started our "Roots" tour in Somerton, a village in Somerset about 20 minutes from our hotel in Bruton. Somerton is a lovely village with the Anglican church, St. Michael's, right in the center of the village. This church is where my ancestors, from the Trott and Braine families, were all christened and married. William Trott, Andrea's great-great grandfather left with his family for Australia in the 1840's. The village was so lovely we cant imagine why he left! We then drove further to the village of South Petherton, where other ancestors, the Clark line, lived. It was amazing to see the family names on war monuments and church rolls in both towns.
SOMERTON (and surroundings)
TROTT WAS THE NAME WE SAW THE MOST OF.....HERE AND IN THE CHURCH, ALSO BRAIN(E)
The Church of St Michael and All Angels
dates from the 13th century
BABTISTRY FONT WHERE ANDREA'S OLDEST RELATIVES FROM THE 1400'S WERE BABTIZED.
One of Andrea's relatives owned a pub in the center of town. We will never know if one of these was the one, but it begs speculation. Each has been here for hundreds of years!
SOUTH PETHERTON (and surroundings)
BACK TO ONE BRUTON........LONG DAY!
After a bath and a nap.......off to the local pub 'Blue Ball' before dinner. The Pub is owned by the same folks that own the hotel and its restaurant......great business model! I was able to spend a few minutes with the bartender discussing local gin. Heard this before? He was very cool, but also memorable was his assistant, a young girl, who had never made a martini before. We 'both' coached her through it! This pub was great.......very active with local folks.
DINNER AT THE HOTEL RESTAURANT
