Mere and the Deverills

Photo of Mere by Ben Avery

Mere and the Deverills volume 19

Project

Work is now underway on the 13 ancient parishes which will be included in volume 19. The focus is on the town of Mere and its surrounding parishes, forming Mere hundred, and the clutch of parishes strung out along the Deverill valley to the north and east. These parishes do not comprise a single hundred, but are drawn from across the three hundreds of Heytesbury, Mere and South Damerham.

The first six parishes: Kilmington (formerly in Somerset), West Knoyle, Maiden Bradley, Mere, Stourton and Zeals form a block surrounding Mere on all sides except the south.

Maiden Bradley and Stourton are dominated by significant stately homes, the seats of the Seymour dukes of Somerset and the Stourton and Hoare families of Stourhead respectively.

Six of the remaining seven parishes form a block along the Deverill valley, south west of Warminster, and have important connections with the modern-day Longleat estate. They are Brixton Deverill, Hill Deverill, and Horningsham (Heytesbury hundred); Kingston Deverill (Mere hundred); and Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill (South Damerham hundred).

Longleat House was built by Sir John Thynne in the 16th century on former priory lands on the border between Horningsham and Longbridge Deverill parishes.

The seventh parish is Compton Chamberlayne, which lies some nine miles south east of the other parishes. It is included here because, with Longbridge Deverill and Monkton Deverill, it completes coverage of South Damerham hundred; the parishes of South Damerham and Martin, which also comprised South Damerham hundred, were transferred to Hampshire in 1895, and so were covered by VCH Hampshire.

In addition to the parish histories, volume 19, in common with all VCH volumes, will include an introductory chapter and a comprehensive index.

Research for this volume started some years ago, though at that time the volume was planned to cover a slightly different area. The work had to pause in 2014 when local government funding was withdrawn but the Institute for Historical Research then agreed to complete the volume. The responsibility for managing the research therefore now lies with them, and good progress is being made.

Research carried out in the area before 2013 has been revised and expanded and two parishes have been researched and written from scratch: Kilmington (formerly in Somerset) was written by Dr Mary Siraut, VCH Somerset editor; and Dr John Chandler has written West Knoyle.

A substantial history of pre-18th century Stourton has been published and the author, Stuart Raymond, has agreed with VCH to share research towards writing the VCH history of that parish.

Dr Mark Forrest, a medieval and early-modern specialist based in Dorset, was given a contract to research Mere in early 2020 and that work is nearly complete.