Norton St Philip is a village and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The village lies about south of the city ofBath and north of the town of Frome. It is situated on the A366 between Trowbridge in Wiltshire and Wells, and on the B3110 between Bath and Frome. New development greatly increased the size of the village in the later 20th century, but there has been a significant reduction in services, with the police station, post office and shops all having closed. This was partly reversed by the opening of a new supermarket, incorporating a post office, in 2016.
History
The earliest signs of habitation can be found a mile to the east of the current village, where the Roman road from Bath to Poole passed. The village is later recorded in the Domesday book as supporting 20 people, three ploughs, a mill and of meadow. A priory was founded near the village in 1232 and had links with the village until its dissolution under the orders of Henry VIII on 31 March 1540. Norton developed a thriving wool trade and became the site of a regional market, signs of which can be seen in local surnames such as Weaver. The parish of Norton St Philip was part of the WellowHundred. Norton St Philip was the site of a battle during the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, and the east-west street on the village's northern edge, officially recorded as Chevers Lane, is referred to locally as Bloody Lane, reportedly as the battle caused so much bloodshed it flowed down this hill. In the aftermath of the failed rebellion Judge Jefferies conducted 12 executions on the village common, known as Churchmead or The Mead, as part of the Bloody Assizes. The route he took to The Mead is known as Jefferies Gate. The George Inn, one of a number of establishments that claim to be Britain’s oldest tavern, is located in the centre of the village. It was built in the 14th or 15th century, as a wool store for the priory at Hinton Charterhouse and to accommodate travellers and merchants coming to the annual wool fairs that were held in the village from the late 13th century until 1902. In the 15th century the timber-framed upper floors were added. The inn became part of the stage coach route between London and the South West; on 12 June 1668 the noted diarist Samuel Pepys, with his wife and servants, passed through Norton St Philip on their way to Bath from Salisbury. The inn was later used as the headquarters of Monmouth's army after his retreat from Bath, and was further used as a court by Judge Jefferies. Faccenda operated a poultry processing plant until the late 1990s, when the property was burnt down. The site has subsequently been redeveloped for housing. A development has been approved for 51 houses phased over the years 2012–2014. The new housing is to be constructed in materials and a style sympathetic to the local vernacular.
Today the village is largely a dormitory settlement for the surrounding towns, and the High Street is a congested, though fast by local standards, commuting route into Bath. Recently, measures have been taken to slow down the rat run traffic through the village by the installation of bollards designed to inhibit through-traffic mounting the pedestrian footpath. Over recent years, the through-traffic utilising the village as a rat run had increased drastically, with the side effect being the increase in traffic incidents involving damage to the cars of the village's inhabitants. There is also an hourly bus service operated byFirst West of England.
