In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Cannington like this:
CANNINGTON, a village, a parish, and a hundred, in Somerset. The village stands 2 miles SSW of a bend of the river Parret, and 3½ NW by W of Bridgewater r. station; and has a post office‡ under Bridgewater. It dates from ancient times; was known to the Saxons as Caninganmaersees; had a Benedictine nunnery, founded in the time of King Stephen, by Robert de Courcy; and is supposed to have been the birth place of the Fair Rosamond, of ballad notoriety. ...
The parish includes also the hamlets of Edstock and Beer; impinges some distance on the Parret; and is in the district of Bridgewater. Acres, 5,015; of which 380 are water. Real property, £4,850. Pop., 1,419. Houses, 320. The manor belongs to Lord Clifford. Cannington Park, the seat of Lord Clifford's ancestors, is now occupied as a grazing farm. Brymere House is the seat of the Hon. P. Pleydell Bouverie. Kithill, in the vicinity, has an altitude of 1,067 feet. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells. Value, £371.* Patron, Lord Clifford. The church was part of the Benedictine nunnery; is later English, and fine; and contains tombs of the Cliffords. There are a Wesleyan chapel, a Roman Catholic chapel, a national school, a charity for alms-houses and for the poor amounting to £330 a year, and other charities £34. -The hundred contains ten parishes. Acres, 28,411. Pop., 5,700. Houses, 1,252.
Cannington through time
Cannington is now part of Sedgemoor district. Click here for graphs and data of how Sedgemoor has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Cannington itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Cannington, in Sedgemoor and Somerset | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/12515
Date accessed: 20th April 2024
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