Map showing Ashington to the North of Yeovil
and adjoing Mudford & Marston Magna
and adjoing Mudford & Marston Magna
The hamlet of Ashington has been an important place in the Sherring family history, in that at least fourteen members of the family were born there between 1785 and 1853. Obviously the family had a good working relationship with the Lord of the Manor, in order to contine working and living there for over six decades. The modern day Ashington (2007) comprises the manor house and nine dwellings, all of which have either been rebuilt or modernized since the late 1880s.
The Doomsday Book of 1086 records 'Goodwin held it in TRE (Under the former monarch Richard III) and it paid geld for three hides. There is land for three plows. In demense (possession of property) is 1 plough with one slave and 2 villanes and 4 bordars with 1 plough. There are 43 acres of meadow and 20 acres of pasture. It is worth 40 shillings.' This was one of the manors which King William the Conqueror bestowed upon one of his followers, Roger de Curcelle after the settlement of William's kingdom following his victory in 1066AD over Richard III.
The Rev John Collinson in 1790 compiled a history of Somerset, in which he wrote of Ashington - 'Lies four miles (6.4km) from Yeovil (NNE), in a low, flat and woody, but withal a fruitful country, washed by the river Yeo.
"Vitalis (essential) holds of Roger ESSENTON. Gaduin held it in the time of King Edward, 'a gelded for three hides. The arable is three carucates (the area of land one plow team can cultivate). In demefne is one carucate, with one servant and two villanes (feudal serfs) and four cottages, with one plow. There are forty-three acres of meadows and twenty acres of pasture. It was and is worth forty shillings (the estimated money payable per annum from farm tenants).' Note that the Rev. Gentleman has not updated the information that was recorded in the Doomsday Book, regarding the land.
Since that time the title to the manorial land has changed many time, quite often in early times, due to the favours or otherwise of the reigning monarch.
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"ASHINGTON, a parish in the hundred of Stone, in the county of Somerset,
3 miles to the N. of Yeovillage. Ilchester is its post town.
It lies on the banks of the river Yeo, not far from the borders of Dorsetshire.
The living is a rectory* in the diocese of Bath and Wells, value �162,
in the patronage of the Rev. J. Nottidge. The church is dedicated to St. Vincent.
There is an endowment of �3 per annum for the
instruction of five boys at the Marston Magna school, founded by Sir J. St. Barbe."
From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) |
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This early map of Ashington shows the remains of an earlier Manor as being in ruins. |
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Ashington church is dedicated to St Vincent and is a small structure of a single pace?, with a turrent at the west end containing
two bells.
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In the chancel (eastern part of the church reserved for the clergy or choir, usually railed off), is a handsome monument
of grey and white marble. It is inscribed: 'Here lies Sir John Barbe, bart. poffeffed of thofe amiable qualities, which birth, education, travel, greatnefs of fpirit and goodnefs of heart, produce. Interned in the fame vault lies his fecond wife Alice Fiennes, aunt to the prefent Lord Say and Sele. His firft was Honour, daughter of Colonel Norton. He died at his feat of Broadlands in Hampshire Sept. 7; 1723, leaving for his only heir and executor Humphrey Sydenham, efq; of Combe in Somerfetfire, who ordered the marble to his memory'. |
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