A Village Remembered

Somerton is not a place that announces itself.

It does not rely on scale, prominence, or recognition beyond its immediate surroundings. Instead, it exists in a quieter way — shaped by continuity rather than change, and by the accumulation of many small details rather than a few defining moments.

What has been brought together here is not a complete history, nor is it intended to be. No single document could fully capture a place such as Somerton. Too much of its character exists outside of formal record — in memory, in familiarity, and in the shared understanding of those who have known it.

And yet, what is recorded still matters.

The entries in the Domesday Book, the influence of Odo of Bayeux and the Arsic family, the extraordinary reach of the Fermors across more than three centuries, the church with its Norman arch and its Fermor monuments and its Whall window, the school, the village hall, the social club, the bells donated in remembrance, the turf maze treaded on May Day by generations of children — all of these form part of a continuing story.

Equally important are the contributions of those who took the time to preserve what they knew. Without that effort, much of what is included here would not exist in any accessible form. The work of Rosemary Arnold, Alice Bowmaker, Basil Eastwood, Shirley Grant, Jo Hawes, Michaela Rees Jones, Sally Woodcock, Neil Clare, Deborah Hayter, John Webb, and all who contributed to the original website has ensured that the history of the village has not been lost to time.

What this document offers is not a conclusion but a continuation.

The village, in all its layers, carries on.

Somerton today has a population of around 300 — much as it has been for two centuries, since the population reached 400 in 1821 and then slowly fell back as farming became less labour-intensive. The village is protected from new development, which has preserved its character and its relationship with the farmland that still surrounds it. The Barnes Memorial Hall remains the centre of village social life, host to the Village Produce Show each September, and to events organised by the Social Club. The bell ringers still ring at St James’s. A film club, a quilting group, and a history group all continue. The Somerton Local History Group, founded in 2010 and consisting at present of just three people, maintains the work of research and preservation that this book represents. It would welcome more members.

What has not changed is the church. St James’s still stands on its knoll above the water meadows, still unusually large and imposing for a village of this size, still containing the tombs of the Fermors and the window by Christopher Whall and the rood screen and the reredos that was hidden from the Puritans and restored in 1822. The medieval preaching cross still stands in the churchyard. The round Norman piers that may have been the Arsics’ work in the twelfth century are still there, holding up the arches. As Basil Eastwood’s guide to the church concludes: it has architectural elements from every century between the eleventh and the sixteenth. In a village whose manor house is a ruin and whose railway station is gone and whose school has been converted to a private house, the church remains. It has always been the thing that endures.