Somerton railway station

Somerton ( SUM-ər-tən) is a town and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It gave its name to the county and was briefly, around the start of the 14th century, the county town, and around 900 was possibly the capital of Wessex. It has held a weekly market since the Middle Ages, and the main square with its market cross is today popular with visitors. Situated on the River Cary, approximately 8.8 miles (14.2 km) north-west of Yeovil, Somerton has its own town council serving a population of 4,697 as of 2011.Residents are often referred to locally as Somertonians. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Etsome, Hurcot, Catsgore, and Catcombe. Archaeological remains at Somerton are evidence of a Celtic settlement. The discovery of a high status cemetery in 2019, suggests that these local people adopted a more Roman lifestyle. During the Anglo-Saxon era, Somerton was an important political and commercial centre. After the Norman conquest of England the importance of the town declined, despite being the county town of Somerset in the late thirteenth century and early fourteenth century. Having lost county town status, Somerton then became a market town in the Middle Ages, whose economy was supported by transport systems using the River Parrett, and later rail transport via the Great Western Railway, and by light industries including glove making and gypsum mining. In the centre of Somerton the wide market square, with its octagonal roofed market cross, is surrounded by old houses, while close by is the 13th century Church of St Michael and All Angels. Somerton also had links with Muchelney Abbey in the Middle Ages. The BBC drama The Monocled Mutineer was filmed in Somerton from 1985 to 1986.

The Old Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place in Somerton, Somerset, England. The building, which is used as an arts centre, is a Grade II listed building.

The Church of St Michael and All Angels in Somerton, Somerset, England dates from the 13th century and has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

The Mid Somerset Hills are a major natural region in the county of Somerset in southwest west England, forming a series of low hills and ridges that divide up the Somerset Levels. The region is listed as National Character Area 143 by Natural England, the UK government's advisor on the natural environment. Its irregularly shaped area covers 42,092 hectares (162.52 sq mi) and runs from Staple Fitzpaine and Ashill in the southwest to just south of Wells and Shepton Mallet in the northeast. The towns of Glastonbury and Street lie partly within this region. To the west are the Somerset Levels and Moors, the Vale of Taunton and Quantock Fringes, to the north the Mendips rise steeply from the flat landscape, to the east and south are the Yeovil Scarplands and to the southwest are the Blackdown Hills.The Mid Somerset Hills send four fingers of higher land into the Levels. The northernmost finger, between the rivers Axe and Brue, ends in the Isle of Wedmore, the next only extends as far as Glastonbury, the third ridge – the Polden Hills – reaches nearly as far as Bridgwater, while the southernmost "thumb" surrounds Somerton. A further area of hills is centred on Curry Mallet and is drained by the rivers Tone and Isle.

The Somerton Viaduct is a historic railway viaduct in the town of Somerton in Somerset, England. It is situated on the Langport and Castle Cary Railway, known as the Castle Cary Cut-off, on the Reading to Taunton Line. It carries the railway over the River Cary.The viaduct was opened in 1906. The construction was overseen by Great Western Railway engineer P.A. Anthony.

Wessex is an electoral ward of South Somerset District Council in Somerset, England. It is one of the wards that makes up the parliamentary constituency of Somerton and Frome. Wessex covers an area of 3,800 hectares (9,400 acres) and in 2011 a population of 5,402 was recorded.The small town of Somerton is the main settlement in the ward, which also includes Compton Dundon.The ward is represented by two councillors; in the district elections of 2015 one Conservative Party candidate and one Liberal Democrat candidate were elected.

Somerton Tunnel is located between Somerton and Langport on the Reading to Taunton Line in Somerset, England.The tunnel was constructed by the Great Western Railway (GWR) on the Langport and Castle Cary Railway. Remnants of its construction remain in the villages of Charlton Mackrell and Long Sutton. Completed during 1906 and in use since, the tunnel is just under a kilometre in length.

The Church of the Holy Trinity in Long Sutton, Somerset, England dates from the 15th century and has been designated as a Grade I listed building.An earlier church would have stood on this site from the 9th century or earlier. The current church, which was consecrated in 1493, was built of local lias stone cut and squared, with hamstone dressings. It has stone slate roofs between stepped coped gabled with finials to the chancel and north porch. The tower, which dates from around 1462, has a ring of six bells, the tenor weighing 136 stone (864 kg). On the corner plates of the tower are hunky punks in the shape of daemonic animals.Internally, the chancel has a ceiled wagon-roof, with moulded ribs and plaster panels. The tower exhibits the tracery typical of Somerset churches. The under-tower space has a lierne vault, and a 15th-century octagonal font with quatrefoil panels. The coloured timber pulpit, with a fly approach stair, dates from 1455 to 1458 and is older than the church itself. It has 20th-century wood figures in the statue niches. It bears the initials identified as those of Abbot John Petherton of Althelney and vicar William Singleton.The wood screen is also ornately carved and dates from the late 15th century. Memorials in the church include a tablet to Elizabeth Banbury, died 1716, with Corinthian columns and entablature, side and bottom swags, as well as a number of 16th- and 17th-century Keinton stone slabs in the floor.

Dundon Hill Hillfort is an Iron Age hillfort in Compton Dundon, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Scheduled Ancient Monument. South east of the site is a Bronze Age bowl barrow which, it has been suggested, was later modified as a Norman Motte, known as Dundon Beacon.The 5 hectares (12 acres) site is guarded by a single bank ranging from 0.5 metres (1.6 ft) to 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) high, however parts of the site have been damaged by quarrying. Flint flakes, Bronze Age pottery, and Iron Age pottery have also been found, which are now in the Museum of Somerset.Dundon Hill, also sometimes called Dundon Beacon, stands out prominently in the flat country of King's Sedgemoor, rising to a height of 270 feet. One writer on ancient earthworks notes that it "looks like a respectable mountain and is in fact a natural island fortress". The whole of the hilltop is enclosed by the single bank of stones and earth.

Hurcott Farm (grid reference ST511295) is a 26.3 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Somerset, notified in 1993. At this site heavily cemented Pleistocene terrace gravels of the River Cary have yielded an abundant freshwater and terrestrial molluscan fauna. The fauna has an interglacial aspect, and includes Corbicula fluminalis and Pisidium clessini. This site is of critical importance as the keystone of the Pleistocene stratigraphy of southern Somerset, and as a freshwater facies-equivalent of the Burtle Beds.

Great Breach and Copley Woods (grid reference ST500320) is a 64.8 hectare (160 acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest 1 km south of Compton Dundon and 5 km south-east of Street in Somerset, England, notified in 1972.

Long Sutton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Somerton in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 833.The village of Long Sutton has a village green with a lime tree at each corner and a chestnut tree in the centre. The Devonshire Arms Hotel is at one end of the green and at the other are the school and Holy Trinity church, dating from 1493. The village is made up of two hamlets, Knole at one end and Upton at the other. The Reading to Taunton line railway runs under the bridge at Upton and at one time certain trains stopped at Long Sutton and Pitney Halt, as it was called until its closure in the early 1960s. The bridge over the River Yeo is medieval in origin, but was probably reshaped in the 18th century.