13th August, 2025 in Local & Family History

The short dark history of Somerset

By Mike Dean

England is a country which, despite its relatively small size, has a long, varied and colourful history, and much of this can still be seen and understood if you know where to look. Each of its villages, towns and cities has its own tales to tell, and the area generally known as the West Country certainly has its fair share. Mike Dean author of The Dark Little History of Somerset discusses the county of Somerset, with its huge variety of scenery; coast, countryside, moorland, hills and woodland. It draws many thousands of visitors every year, but to truly appreciate any county you need to understand something of its past, and this can yield some fascinating and unexpected discoveries.

A study of the past teaches us that human nature and behaviour have not fundamentally changed over the centuries, and that history has been shaped by people of many kinds, both good and bad. Noble deeds, generous actions, devoted loyalties and selfless sacrifice are one side of the coin: on the other are evil, cruelty, bloodshed, betrayal and greed. These less attractive aspects, distasteful as they may be, are nonetheless part of our history, and have helped to make us what we are today. We cannot ignore them if we want to get a full and balanced picture.

Like any other county, Somerset has its share of both aspects, with most books about its history preferring to focus on its more agreeable aspects. However, a study of the darker side of the county’s highly varied past can yield some fascinating and sometimes surprising results. In the past, life could often be very precarious, with medical knowledge and expertise being far less developed than those we take for granted today. Apart from some of the larger towns and cities, most counties were largely rural in character, and had to rely on the limited knowledge of a local ‘wise’ man or woman. Quack ‘doctors’ – charlatans with little or no medical knowledge – could set up in practice with no regulation, and were an additional danger to the gullible, unwary or desperate.

The nature and cause of illness were often not understood, or attributed to completely incorrect assumptions, frequently resulting in the administration of treatments which were more dangerous than the diseases themselves. Bizarre concoctions such as ‘Celestial Water’, ‘Dragon’s Water’ and ‘Venice Treacle’ could contain such ingredients as wormwood, opium, gum arabic and viper’s flesh! An ever-present fear was that of plague, which could sometimes wipe out a whole community andresult in a completely deserted village, of which several examples exist in Somerset. A succession of poor harvests could also have devastating results.

Warfare in its various forms could also lead to major loss of life, particularly in earlier times when there was no standing army, and obligations required tenants to fight for their feudal lord. Civil wars tended to range up and down the country, and could affect even some of the remoter areas. Somerset folk saw their share of action during such conflicts as the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion, and even much earlier, when they were obliged to deal with invasions by Viking raiders intent on plunder.

Law and order has often been a difficult concept to enforce, whether in urban or rural surroundings. Severe hardship often led people to commit desperate acts, resulting in horrific punishments which could include hanging, burning, mutilation, transportation or long periods of imprisonment in unspeakable conditions – often for what we would regard today as trivial offences. Documentary evidence from the late 18th and early 19th centuries which gives us details of the names, crimes and sentences of transportees from Somerset makes fascinating reading.

Somerset has seen plenty of wickedness over the centuries, especially in the days when life was cheap and people could sometimes become desperate. How did a curate of the Church of England once end up in a cauldron? And who was the man who murdered his child and threw her body down a mineshaft? Harrowing tales, but all part of the county’s colourful history. Everyone loves a mystery, and Somerset has some intriguing ones, including people like Nancy Camel who disappeared without trace, unexplained phenomena such as the Beast of Exmoor, ghostly encounters with long-dead monks and cases of demonic possession, like that of George Lukins of Yatton.

England’s story has been called ‘an interwoven pattern of history and legend’, and the history of Somerset is a good example of this. Indeed, it is sometimes hard to separate fact from fancy, as is the case with the Doones of Exmoor. When R. D. Blackmore wrote his best-selling novel Lorna Doone, published in 1869, he drew his inspiration from a well-known local tradition of a band of desperate outlaws who terrorised the area in the 17th century. His technique of blending real and imaginary characters in the story convinced many readers that the story was true, and even today,
many visitors come in search oft the locations so vividly described in the book.

No matter where we live, delving into the darker aspects of our history can be intriguing, illuminating and often surprising, but never dull…