DE SUDSTOCA
Wansdyke Information Board
In the year of our Lord 961, I Edgar, by divine Grace, King and Chief of the whole land of Albion, bequeath in perpetual right a piece of land consisting of five holdings in the place which is called Tottanstoc to the Church of the Blessed Peter at Bath.
This land which was wickedly and perversely taken from the said Church is to be free of service save for the maintenance of the fortification and the bridges and the usual service in the militia.
We have solemnly signed the contract of this bequest in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ so that none of our successors shall dare, so long as Christendom endures, to tamper with it in the smallest detail, but if anyone so dare, may he endure the bitter anguish of eternal hell.
The Senators of the whole of Albion are my fellow guarantors of this gift but in particular those whose names are inscribed below:
I, Edgar King, have marked this bequest with the sign of the Cross.
I, Dunstan, Archbishop, have agreed and signed below
[21 bishops and chiefs also signed]
The piece of land is enclosed within the following boundaries:
First Woden’s Dyke bounds it on the north west. Then to the springs at Horse Combe. Along the brooks to the Camelar. Along Camelar against the stream to Boundary Brook. Along the Brook against stream to the Western Seven springs. Then uphill along Boundary Brook. Then due north for some distance. Then bending west round a gore as far as the Old Street (or Made Road). Along the Made Road once more to Woden’s Dyke.
This ‘translation’ of a Royal Charter written over 1,000 years ago, defines South Stoke.
Stoc’ is Old English for an outlying farmstead or dependent settlement. ‘Sud’ means south.
It means that the estate had previously belonged to the Monastery of St Peter in Bath. King Edgar is ordering the return of this estate, which had been leased to a Saxon named Totta. The extent of the estate is 5 holdings (hides).
A hide was sufficient land for a family with one plough to live off for a year, typically about 120 acres.
The boundary feature ‘Woden’s Dyke’ (now known as the Wansdyke ) still exists today in the form of a vestigial earth bank. It is not known exactly when or why it was constructed, but it is likely to have been for defence purposes during Saxon times. Some historians have argued that the boundaries of the Sudstoca estate could have been in existence for many hundreds of years before the foundation of the Monastery in the mid 8th century.
Archaeological evidence indicates that this land was occupied in prehistoric, Roman and Saxon times. The Church and Manor were the all powerful focus of life here in medieval feudal times. In 1539, the Monastery and its property surrendered to the Crown. The Manor was variously leased until 1660 when Charles II gave it and some land to Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich, as a reward for loyalty.
Vicar, Churchwardens, Overseer of the Poor, Constable and Waywarden had been responsible under the Vestry for the governance of the Parish since the Middle Ages, but this changed in 1894 when Parish Councils were established as the centre of community and local government.
Agriculture (in various forms such as livestock, arable and market gardening) continued to be the main source of employment up to the 20th century, but the 19th century brought significant industrial activity to the parish. Mining of Fuller’s Earth in and around the parish became an important source of jobs from the mid 19th century until mid – late 20th century. The Somersetshire Coal Canal was constructed between 1795 and 1805, and cuts through the parish on its way from the North Somerset coalfields to the Kennet and Avon Canal giving access to markets in Bath and elsewhere. It flourished for the first half of the century but increasingly succumbed to the competition of the railways: it was closed in 1898 and sold in 1904 to the GWR who built a railway over much of its route which operated until 1951. In 1871 the Somerset and Dorset Railway built the line from Bath to Evercreech which ran through the east of the parish and connected the north and midlands to the south coast. Famous for the Pines Express, it was closed under the axe of Dr Beeching in 1966. Prominent features of the canal and both railways remain in the landscape, especially in and around Midford.
In the early part of the 20th century, there was some house building in the parish, notably along the Midford Road. The boundary of the parish as defined in King Edgar’s charter remained unaltered for nearly 1,000 years, but in the 1950 Bath Extension Act an area in the north-west corner of the parish was transferred to the city of Bath specifically for the building of two schools. Only one school (St Gregory’s) was ever built: the rest of the annexed area was eventually allocated for housing and is now the Sulis Meadows Estate.
In recent years there has been relentless and intensifying pressure for major housing development in the parish, especially on the plateau land in the north of the parish, and it remains greater than ever. That the parish still retains its separate identity, and rural character and setting, is due to the fact that since 1990 the whole parish has been within the Bristol/Bath Green Belt, and the whole parish (with the exception of the Midford Road housing area) has been within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. South Stoke village was designated as a Conservation Area in 1981.
The heritage of South Stoke is aptly epitomised in two quotations:
The eminent chronicler and author of ‘The King’s England’ series, Arthur Mee, wrote in 1940 that:
“it lies in as fair a scene as Nature has given us from her chalice of beauty”
and;
The great art and architectural historian, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, observed in 1958 that South Stoke presented:
“the happy sight of a village still entirely unsuburbanised, though only two miles from the main station of a city”.
Further reading:
The Book of South Stoke with Midford: The History of a Parish edited by Robert Parfitt (Halsgrove 2001): a comprehensive, profusely illustrated, quality hardback of 160 pages. Available from South Stoke Local History Group.
A SouthStoke History – The work of John Canvin. Available for download here:- South Stoke History