Ilminster, Somerset

Description
Ilminster, a town and a parish in Somerset The town stands on the river Isle, and has a station on the G.W.R., 165 miles from London, and 5 N by E of Chard. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. Acreage, 4079; population, 3135. It takes its name from the river Isle, and from its own church or minster. It was a place of some importance in the Saxon times. It was at one period more extensive than at present, and it has repeatedly suffered injury by fire. It comprises two long streets, from E to W and from N to S, and contains many good houses. It has two banks, three chief inns, a market-house, a police station, a church, Free, Congregational, Wesleyan, and Unitarian chapels, a grammar school, and it is a seat of petty sessions and a polling-place. The church belonged to Muchelney Abbey, is cruciform and Decorated English, with chantry chapel and pinnacled central tower, and contains brasses and monuments of the Wadhams, one of whom was the founder of Wadham College, Oxford. The grammar school was founded in 1550 by H. Waldron, a native; the income is about £870 yearly; the school was reorganized in 1874, and a new boys' school was built in 1879. Markets are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays; a fair is held on the last Wednesday of Aug.; and brewing, flax-spinning, lace manufacturing, shirt-collar making, and brick-making are carried on. Samwayes the theologian was a native. There are Conservative and Liberal clubs and a reading-room. Dillington House, standing in a beautiful park of 47 acres, is the seat of the Lee family, who are lords of the manor. The living is a royal peculiar in the diocese of Bath and Wells; commuted value, £500 with residence.