Milborne Port in 1841
Milborne Port is in the hundred of Horethorne, 117 or 118 miles west-south-west of London by Salisbury and Shaftesbury, and 34 miles east by south of Taunton by Ilminster and Yeovil. It was a borough and market-town at the time of the compilation of Domesday, in which it is called Mileburne and Meleburne, and is recorded to contain 56 burgesses. It sent members to parliament in the time of Edward I, after which it ceased to send them till the reign of Charles I, when it regained the franchise, which it finally lost by the Reform Act.
The town is pleasantly situated in a valley near the source's of the Yeo : it consists chiefly of detached houses, and is irregularly built ; it is small and of mean appearance. The church is a large cross church, with a square tower : there is an ancient town-hall with a curious Norman door-way, and there are an Independent and a Wesleyan meeting-house.
The parish comprehends an area of 3,150 acres, with a population, in 1831, of 2,072. Leather-dressing and glove-making are carried on, having replaced the manufacture of woollen-cloth, linen, and hosiery, which formerly existed. The market is discontinued, but there are two yearly fairs. The corporation still exists, and consists of nine proprietors of certain pieces of land or burgage tenements ; two of whom are annually appointed 'reigning bailiffs.' The borough is not noticed either in the Report's of the Commissioners of Municipal Corporations or in the Municipal Reform Act.
The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Wells, in the diocese of Bath and Well's, of the clear yearly value of £233, with a glebe-house.
There were, in 1833, five dame-schools, with 91 children of both sexes ; five other day-schools, with 156 children ; and three Sunday-schools, with 315 children. |