Williton, Somerset - thatchers at work - local postcard c.1980s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Williton, Somerset - shows house being re-thatched and garden with dog
• Publisher:  Somerset Federation of Women's Institutes
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Williton is a small-sized town and civil parish in West Somerset, England. It has many of the facilities of a small town, being the administrative centre for the district. Williton is situated at the junction of the A39, A358 and B3191 roads. It is situated on the coast 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Watchet, roughly equidistant between Minehead, Bridgwater and Taunton.

The parish includes the seaside village of Doniford and the hamlet of St Decumans.^[2]

Williton is home to one of the ten stations of the West Somerset Railway. Doniford Halt was built on the same line in 1987 to serve the nearby Haven Holiday centre.

Since 1974 Williton has been administered by the West Somerset District Council. The Parish Council was created in 1983. It is a registration district for Births, Marriages and Deaths. Williton is twinned with Neung-sur-Beuvron in the Loir-et-Cher département of France.

Until 1902 Williton was part of the ancient parish of Saint Decuman,^[3] which included also the town of Watchet. The parish of St Decuman was part of the Williton and Freemanners Hundred.^[4]

Within Williton parish, to the south-west, is Orchard Wyndham House, a Grade I listed building, ^[5] which was the centre of an estate called ""Orchard"". Paleolithic, mesolithic and neolithic flints have been found at Doniford to the north-east of Williton while three Bronze Age barrows survive at Battlegore Burial Chamber, just north of the centre of Williton.

The name of Williton is Anglo-Saxon and means ""estate on the Willet"" (river); the Willet is a brook that rises at Willet, flows north through the hamlet of Stream, and close to the former manor house of Williton, then it joins the Doniford Brook north-east of Williton. Both watercourses seem to have been known as the Willet in the 12th century.

""Willet"" may well be a British name. In the time of Edward the Elder the manor at Wiilitun was a royal hunting estate; its only pre-Conquest mention is in Edward's charter to the priory at Taunton, in which the prior and monks are enjoined to provide board and lodging for a single night, when the king was progressing, with dogs and falcons and their keepers, ""ad Curig vel Willittun"", ""to Curry or else Williton"".^[6] In the Domesday Survey Williton continued to form a royal estate, with Carhampton and Cannington. In the Middle Ages the village was divided into the manors of Williton Fulford and Williton Hadley. An estate known as Williton Templar belonged to the Knights Templar, and was later known as Williton Hospital and Williton Regis. Originally the centre of the village appears to have been near the church but over time it has migrated to the north-east.

Much of the centre of Williton dates from the later 19th century but Long Street includes several 17th-century houses, as do Bridge, Priest, Robert and Shutgate Streets. Agriculture has been the prime activity in the parish while Williton village became a local government and communal centre. Its importance increased with the creation of new toll roads that today are the main roads to the village. It is an important local shopping area and from 1894 has been an administration centre. It had a workhouse for the district, which became the local hospital until 1990 but has now been converted into housing.

Doniford House has late medieval origins and was enlarged circa 1600.^[7] Beside the beach is an early 19th-century lime kiln which is thought to have been in operation until the 1930s.^[8]

Before World War II at a site between Watchet and Doniford a gunnery range was established for various army units to practice anti-aircraft gunnery. Unmanned target aircraft were towed by planes from RAF Weston Zoyland and later were fired from catapults over the sea.^[9] Little of the camp buildings survive and it is now the site of a holiday park.^[10]

type=printed

city/ region=williton

period=post-war (1945 - present)

postage condition=unposted

number of items=single

size=continental/ modern (150x100mm)