Churchill, Somerset


Churchill is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England. It is located in the unitary authority of North Somerset, on the western edge of the Mendip Hills, about east of Weston-super-Mare, and about south-west of Bristol. The parish, which includes the village of Lower Langford and the hamlet of Upper Langford, has a population of 2,250.
Although relatively close to large urban centres, Churchill has the character of a small country village. The village is settled around the junction of the A38 and A368 and is overlooked by Dolebury Warren, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, Windmill Hill to the north, and the Mendip Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to the south. Churchill, like many villages, grew around its medieval church, and has many listed buildings reflecting the history of the parish.
There is one primary school, a secondary school, a post office, several shops and small businesses, three churches, and four pubs serving the area. There is also a doctor's surgery, allotments at Pudding Pie Lane, a hotel, and a number of bed and breakfast establishments. Recreation facilties include a sports centre with swimming pool, a dry ski slope and an outdoor pursuits. There are active cricket, Football | and skittles clubs, and many other leisure and sporting activities, including music and walking groups.

History

Toponymy

The origin of the name Churchill is uncertain. The word "cruc" meaning hillock or peak, survives from Anglo-Saxon as "crook", "creech", "critch". Consequently, one suggestion is that Churchill derived its name from the hillock which is now known as Windmill Hill at Churchill and became Cruc-hill or Cric-hill, often Chirchulle and later distorted to the more familiar Churchill. Attempts to explain its name by reference to the Norman, Roger de Courcelle, the holder of many Manors in Somerset, have been inconclusive and its origin may be nothing more than the proximity of an earlier chapel or church to Windmill Hill.

Pre-history

The village is settled around the junction of the A38 and A368 and is overlooked by Dolebury Warren, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest. Finds from the site demonstrate an extensive period of occupation, and include Palaeolithic flintwork, Bronze Age pottery, a bronze spearhead and Roman coins and pottery. In addition to the remains of double ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort still being visible there is also evidence of a medieval rabbit warren. At Dinghurst south of the village is the site of an Iron Age univallate hill fort and Roman fort.
There is also some archaeological evidence to support Windmill Hill being used in Iron Age and Roman times as a hill fort and look-out point respectively. A prominent feature in the parish, Windmill Hill divides Churchill from Lower Langford, and gained its name from a windmill recorded in Churchill Manor in 1652. There is thought to have been a windmill there as early as the 13th or 14th century when they were first introduced to the region.

Medieval

The present village of Churchill, together with Lower Langford, has its more populous part either on or in close proximity to the A38 road: Churchill Court, the former Manor house, and the Church of St John the Baptist that adjoins it, is isolated on its western edge. Furthermore, Barrow Fields, The Berrys, and Pitchbury, are bare fields in front and beside the church. It has been suggested that the field names are corruptions of the Anglo-Saxon words "burh" or "beorg", meaning townships or mounds of ruined buildings, and that they refer to a medieval settlement now vanished and buried. A large scale map shows a clear pattern of ancient strip fields. Even where later enclosures and the amalgamation of adjoining strips have put hedges around the medieval plots, the lines of these boundaries run at a right-angle to the original strip lynchets and ridge and furrow pattern, both common medieval agricultural practices. In the dry summer of 1996 cropmarks emerged in Barrow Fields, visible from surrounding high ground, showing outlines of dwellings and field boundaries.
There was a settled and developed farming community within Churchill, with the strip fields running out towards the open marshy levels, used for summer grazing, and with drove roads, still existing: Yanel Lane, Sandmead Drove and Common Lane giving access to them. It has been proposed that these droves converged at Churchill Green, the place where cattle, sheep and produce would be conveniently gathered and markets held. Accordingly, there is no clear reason why a village should disappear unless dispossessed by a landlord, anxious to surround his house with a park, or decimated by plague, of which there is no evidence. It is possible that as wheeled vehicles began to replace the packhorse trains, and traffic grew through the gap in the hills beyond Churchill Gate, the eastern end of the settlement grew and the houses around the church were deserted.
The Domesday survey did not mention Churchill since it was part of the Manor of Banwell, in the Hundred of Winterstoke, belonging to the Bishop of Bath and Wells and not held in fee direct from the King. Churchill is first mentioned as a separate Manor in 1231 in an award made by Bishop Jocelin of Wells concerning the "chapel of Churchill", and in the same document Robert Fitzpayne, Sheriff of Somerset under Henry II, and John de la Stocke, are mentioned as local landowners. Stock Lane still carries the name of the 13th century inhabitant and the Fitzpaynes lived at Churchill Court for some two hundred years.

Post-medieval

Sir John Churchill, knighted in 1670, purchased the Manor of Churchill from Richard Jenyns in 1671. He died in 1685, greatly in debt, and Churchill Manor, which he left to his daughter Lady Scroggs, was sold, after complicated litigation, with his other property. The deer park enclosed large swathes of land to the north of the main village, with some of the walls still standing around the boundary. There is also evidence of mills and fishponds associated with the manor.

18th and 19th centuries

Broad areas of land were enclosed by the Enclosure Acts in the 18th and 19th centuries. A steep, rocky and untarmacked lane called the Batch was the old Bristol and Exeter coach road, until 1824, when the Commissioners of the Bristol Turnpike Trust determined that they would create a new toll road to avoid the steep incline of the original. A new toll house was built and gate installed across Churchill Gate near Four Cross. The new road, now New Road that constitutes part of the A38, joined the Bristol Turnpike road of Winford and was completed by November 1826. Before that year, the toll road passed in front of the inn called the Nelson Arms in the corner of Skinners Lane and Dinghurst Road, and up to the top of the Batch, coming out into the present road again in Star, a hamlet in the parish of Shipham.

Geography

The area is predominantly agricultural, with a high proportion of pasture land. The southern border of the parish lies within the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and rises to a height of about. This southern area is extensively wooded but also contains large areas of open downland. Much of Churchill parish is low lying moorland to the west and north west where it is less than feet above sea level. The lowest part is on the North Somerset Levels where it is only above sea level.
Further north the land descends into the valley of the Congresbury Yeo river which ultimately drains westward into the Bristol Channel between the coastal towns of Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare. This northern area is sparsely populated and artificially drained, lying almost at sea level, where drainage ditches, or rhynes, replace stone walls and hedges as the field boundaries. The streams, together with the Congresbury Yeo, delineate much of the parish boundary and in the east, the Langford Brook, flowing through Lower Langford, divides that community into two; only the western part being included within Churchill Parish. Windmill hill is high and gives good views across the Vale of Wrington, towards the Mendip Hills, the iron age hillfort at Dolebury, the Bristol Channel and Wales to the west and towards the Chew Valley to the east. On Dinghurst Road, the views are dominated by the meadows on Lyncombe Hill and the Mendip Hills.
The land is of the fertile Mercia Mudstone Group, formed of red layers of mudstone and siltstone of Triassic age, with peat at the Somerset Levels, giving good pasture on the Mendip Hills. The edge of the hills has carboniferous limestone that has been exposed on the Black Down Pericline due to the erosion of the overlying Triassic dolomitic conglomerate. The dolomitic conglomerate and limestone is used in local buildings and walls. A quarry for conglomerate stone was on the north side of Windmill Hill. Mines in Dolebury Warren have sought lead with silver, iron, ochre, manganese and zinc carbonate ; the latter for brass manufacture. Important features like Dolebury Warren and Burrington Combe were formed by the action of water. Like Cheddar they may be collapsed caves or created by meltwater rushing off the hills during the end of glacial periods.

Governance

From 1894 to 1974 Churchill was part of the Axbridge Rural District. When this was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972 it became part of the Woodspring district in the new county of Avon. In 1996 this became the North Somerset unitary authority, as established by the Local Government Act 1992, which remains part of the ceremonial county of Somerset. The Blagdon and Churchill ward is represented by one councillor on the North Somerset Council.
There are thirteen parish councillors, either elected on a four-yearly basis or co-opted when a vacancy occurs. The parish council has responsibility for local issues, including setting an annual precept to cover the council’s operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the local police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, such as the memorial hall, playing fields and playgrounds, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport and street cleaning. Conservation matters and environmental issues are also of interest to the council.
The parish is represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom as part of the Weston-super-Mare county constituency. The MP for the constituency is John Penrose of the Conservative Party, who first won the seat in the 2005 General Election.

Population

After World War II new houses were built around the crossroads and towards Lower Langford. The parish contains two substantial population groupings, Churchill and Lower Langford, and their centres are separated by about a mile. However, beginning in the late 1980s, development of an area lying between these centres has added some 200 new homes, and this development has served substantially to unite the two centres. Nevertheless, Churchill is still an important agricultural area and retains its rural appeal. Consequently, it has now developed into both a retirement area and a dormitory for people working in Weston-super-Mare and Bristol.

Transport

The village is not well-served by buses, but services are available to Weston-Super-Mare, Bristol, Wells, Cheddar, Shipham, and a limited number of other destinations. A Stagecoach bus, known as the "South West Falcon", connects Devon with Somerset, Bristol Airport and Bristol, and can be boarded from a number of bus stops in the parish.
Three heavily trafficked major roads traverse the parish: the A38, the A368 and the B313. Congestion results from the lack of an adequate east-west road link immediately south of Bristol. However, Churchill's proximity to Bristol Airport and Yatton Railway Station, and to the M5 Motorway, junction 21 is, and junction 22 is, make it a good location for people whose work takes them about the country. The second Severn Crossing adds to mobility and the M4 is away.

Education

There are two schools within the parish: a Church of England Voluntary Controlled primary school, serving both Churchill and Langford, and Churchill Academy and Sixth Form, a large state-run secondary school and specialist Arts College, serving nearby villages in North Somerset.
Churchill Primary School has around 200 pupils aged 4 to 11 years and is located in the adjacent village of Lower Langford. It was newly built in 2002 after relocating from its former location at Ladymead Lane. Churchill Academy, built in the 1960s, has around 1,550 students between the ages of 11 and 18 years and is located on Churchill Green. Facilities include the sixth form centre, cafeterias and the neighbouring Churchill Sports Centre with playing fields.
Langford House, built in the middle of the 19th century, has more recently become home to the Veterinary School of the University of Bristol, with around 650 undergraduate and postgraduate students and 300 staff. About half of the veterinary students live on site, or in surrounding villages, and others reside in Bristol.

Religious sites

The church of St John the Baptist was built around 1360 and restored in 1879. The tower has three stages with diagonal buttresses, moulded string courses, north-east polygonal higher corner stair turret with blind panelled embattled cap and pierced quatrefoil lozenge parapet with corner pinnacles and gargoyles.
There is also a Methodist Church that was built in 1880 by Sidney Hill, a local businessman and benefactor, as a memorial to his wife, and both are interred in a mausoleum along the front of the building.

Buildings and monuments of interest

There are many listed buildings and monuments reflecting the history and diverse architecture of the village:

Sport and recreation

Churchill has a sports centre with swimming pool, a dry ski slope and an outdoor pursuits centre and four pubs: The Crown Inn, The Nelson Arms, The Stag and Hounds and The Churchill Inn. There are active cricket, Football | and skittles clubs, and many other leisure and sporting activities, including music and walking groups.

Other facilities

The village has a post office with shop and tea rooms, a fish and chip shop, a memorial hall, a doctor's surgery, allotments at Pudding Pie Lane, a hotel, and a number of bed and breakfast establishments.

Notable people

On 18 November 1940, American magazine Life published a major feature on the village and its residents. It was intended as an American wartime propaganda exercise to show the world "the secret of British courage under the German bombs" and sought to gain American support for the British war effort. Included were many photographs taken by Cecil Beaton. In December 1940, Pathé News followed-up the article with a short film on village life in Churchill.
During the fifth episode of series three of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson crashed a Toyota Hilux into an oak tree in the car park of St John the Baptist Church. The churchwarden had presumed that the damage had been accidental until the Top Gear episode was broadcast. After the BBC was contacted, the director of Top Gear admitted guilt and the broadcaster paid compensation.

Footnotes