Compton Dundon
Compton Dundon is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, lying beside King's Sedgemoor and the Polden Hills, south of Glastonbury and north of Somerton. The village has a population of 705. The parish includes the small village of Dundon and the hamlet of Littleton.
History
Just outside the village is Dundon Hill, an Iron Age hill fort, with ramparts. An excavation in 1916 found pottery and flints here, but the fort has been damaged by quarrying.The manor was owned by Glastonbury Abbey at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. The parish of Compton Dundon was part of the Whitley Hundred.
Paul Kemp-King writes in an unpublished manuscript that it is almost certain that there was once a bell foundry in the village, although its exact location is uncertain. Bells cast in Compton Dundon can be found in nearby villages: Somerton and Aller, for example. Kemp-King writes that the difficulty of transporting the heavy bells by horse and cart made local casting by itinerant bell-founders desirable.
Within the parish is the Admiral Hood Monument celebrating Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.
Governance
The parish council has responsibility for local issues, including setting an annual precept to cover the council's operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the local police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters and environmental issues are also the responsibility of the council.For local government purposes, since 1 April 2023, the parish comes under the unitary authority of Somerset Council. Prior to this, it was part of the non-metropolitan district of South Somerset. It was part of Langport Rural District before 1974. Compton Dundon falls within the electoral ward of Wessex.
It is also part of the Glastonbury and Somerton county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election.
Geography
At the central crossroads is the remains of a 14th-century wayside cross.Just south of the village is Great Breach and Copley Woods, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest which is a Nature Conservation Review Woodland Site, owned and managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust. The site consists of ancient and semi-natural broadleaved woodland. Two woodland types with a restricted distribution in Britain occur and the site supports a locally important invertebrate fauna.