FOREWORD

This is the sixth volume to be produced as a result of the partnership between Somerset County Council and the University of London's Institute of Historical Research. That partnership is described in the Editorial Note to Volume III, which was published in 1974. The County Council's responsibility for the Victoria History of Somerset has, during the compilation of the present volume, been borne first by its Libraries, Museums, and Records Committee, from 1998 by its Information and Leisure Board, from May 2000 to March 2001 by its Community, Leisure, and Information Review Committee, and from March 2001 by its Culture, Inclusion, and Access Policy Panel. The University here records its most sincere thanks for the generosity with which the County Council has met and continues to meet the expense of compiling the History, for the active enthusiasm of successive chairs and portfolio holders, Mr. John Farley, Ms. Liz Palmer, Mrs. Annie Cant, and Ms. Paddy McMaster; and for the notable support of Mr. John Whitcutt, County Secretary and Solicitor until 1998, of Mr. Michael Jennings, Corporate Director, Education, and of Mrs. Jane Murray, Corporate Director, Culture and Community.

Many people have given valuable help in the preparation of this volume. Those who were concerned with particular parishes are named in the footnotes to those parishes: they are thanked most warmly. For more extensive help particular thanks are offered to Mr. David Bromwich, Local Studies Librarian, to Mr. Tom Mayberry, County Archivist, to Mr. Philip Nokes, Assistant Diocesan Secretary, Wells, to members of the Somerset Vernacular Buildings group (especially Mr. John Dallimore), and to colleagues in the County Museum Service and the Architectural and Historic Heritage Group in the Culture and Heritage directorate.

Thanks are also offered to the owners and staffs of the private archives at C. & J. Clark at Street, Sherborne Castle, Dorset (especially Mrs. A. Smith), Longleat House, Wiltshire, and Mells Manor House (especially Mr. M. McGarvie). Among the public libraries and record offices to whose staffs the thanks of the History are rendered for their active support, special mention must be made of the Somerset Local Studies Library and the Somerset Record Office.