Batheaston, Somerset

Description
Batheaston, a parish in Somerset. It lies on the river Avon, near the Fosse Way, 1 mile N by E of Bathampton station on the G.W.R., and 2 1/2 miles NE of Bath. Acreage, 1890 ; population of the civil parish, 1725; of the ecclesiastical, 1837. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, and a bridge across the Avon to Bathampton. The manor belonged to the Saxon kings, and the church was early appropriated to Bath Abbey. Solsbury Hill, 600 feet high, has traces of a circular camp supposed to have been used by the Saxons in their siege of Bath. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of St Catherine, in the diocese of Bath and Wells; net value, £250 with residence. Patron, Christ Church College, Oxford. the church is Perpendicular English; the north aisle was built in 1833, and the nave rebuilt and a south aisle added in 1868. It contains a tablet to the memory of the Rev. J. Conybeare, the Anglo-Saxon scholar, who was several years vicar. There are a church at St Catherines, and Wesleyan and Congregational chapels. The Bath Waterworks have reservoirs in this parish.