Frome
Frome is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills and on the River Frome, south of Bath. The population of the parish was 28,559 in 2021.
Frome was one of the largest towns in Somerset until the Industrial Revolution. The town first grew due to the wool and cloth industry; it later diversified into metal-working and printing, although these have declined. The town was enlarged during the 20th century but retains a large number of listed buildings, and most of the centre falls within a conservation area.
The town has road and rail transport links and acts as an economic centre for the surrounding area. It provides a centre for cultural and sporting activities, including the annual Frome Festival and Frome Museum.
In 2014, Frome was named by The Times as the "sixth coolest town" in Britain. It was shortlisted as one of three towns in the country for the 2016 Urbanism Awards in the 'Great Town Award' category. In its 2018 and 2021 report on the "Best places to live in the UK", The Sunday Times listed Frome as the best in the South West. In April 2019, Time Out listed Frome among 15 of the best weekend breaks from London.
History
Prehistoric
Finds from Whatley Quarry near Mells suggest the presence of late Pleistocene mankind.Neolithic bowl barrows have been located in nearby Trudoxhill. At Murtry Hill, just 3 km to the north-west of Frome, a Neolithic long barrow 35m long by 19m wide was located with substantial upright stones, a 'chest' burial and cremation urns. Within Frome itself, another long barrow was found, with skeletons, pottery and a standing stone; its structure seemed similar to the Long Kennet barrow. Others from the Bronze Age have been identified in Berkley to the north-east and near Nunney to the south-west.
The name Frome comes from the Proto-Brythonic word *frāmā, itself from Proto-Celtic *srōm- meaning fair, fine or brisk and describing the flow of the river. In 2019, the BBC ranked Frome as, among places in the UK, having the most difficult name to pronounce.
Roman
There is limited evidence of Roman settlement in the area. The remains of a villa were found in the village of Whatley, to the west of Frome. Another villa is suggested at Selwood. Southill House in Cranmore, 10 miles southwest, has evidence of a villa with a hypocaust. Two villas have been surveyed in the Hemington area, to the north-west of Frome, alongside other sites, ditches and boundaries.A Roman road ran from the west of the Mendips passing south of Frome en route to Old Sarum and Clausentum or to Moriconium, probably for the export of lead and silver from mines in the Mendips. Part of a Romano-British sculpted head and part of a Roman road surface were found near Clink, Frome: possibly linked to a Roman road running south from Aquae Sulis, but this has been traced only as far as Oldford Farm, Selwood, just north of Frome. Just to the southeast is Friggle Street, suggestive of a Roman road.
In April 2010, the Frome Hoard, one of the largest hoards of Roman coins discovered in Britain, was found in a field near the town by a metal detectorist; the 52,500 coins dating from the third century AD were in a jar below the surface. The coins were excavated by archaeologists from the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and some are now on display in the British Museum. The find was the subject of a BBC TV programme Digging for Britain in August 2010. A further 250 Dubonnic coins had been found in an urn when ploughing near Nunney in 1860; they included those of Claudius who began the conquest of Britain. Other coins continue to be found in this neighbourhood, both Roman and Byzantine.
Medieval
A church built by St. Aldhelm in 685 is the earliest evidence of Saxon occupation of Frome. Aldhelm was a member of the Wessex royal family, cousin to King Cenwealh. The name was first recorded in 701 when Pope Sergius gave permission to Bishop Aldhelm to found a monastery "close to the river which is called From".The Saxon kings appear to have used Frome as a base from which to hunt in Selwood Forest. In 934 a witenagemot was held there, indicating that Frome must already have been a significant settlement, with even a royal palace. The charter names a Welsh sub-king, sixteen bishops and twenty five ministers, all called by Æthelstan, now regarded as the first king of England. Æthelstan's half-brother, King Eadred, died in Frome on 23 November 955.
At the time of the Domesday Survey, the manor was owned by King William, and was the principal settlement of the largest and wealthiest hundred in Somerset. Over the following years, parts of the original manor were spun off as distinct manors; for example, one was owned by the minster, later passing to the Abbey at Cirencester, which others were leased by the Crown to important families. By the 13th century, the Abbey had bought up some of the other manors and was exploiting the profits from market and trade in the town. Local tradition asserts that Frome was a medieval borough, and the reeve of Frome is occasionally mentioned in documents after the reign of Edward I, but there is no direct evidence that Frome was a borough and no trace of any charter granted to it. However, the Kyre Park Charters of Edward's reign note a Hugh, lord of Parva Frome, as well as other witnesses. Additionally, Henry VII granted a charter to Edmund Leversedge, then lord of the manor, giving him the right to hold fairs on 22 July and 21 September. The parish was part of the hundred of Frome.
Hales Castle was probably built in the years immediately after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The circular ringwork is in diameter and stands on the northern slope of Roddenbury Hill, close to the Iron Age Roddenbury Hillfort, to the south-east of Frome. It comprises banks and outer ditches and has an unfinished bailey. At a similar distance to the south-west of Frome stands Nunney Castle, "aesthetically the most impressive castle in Somerset," built from 1373 onwards, surrounded by a moat.
In 1369, there was a record of 'three tuns of woad' being purchased by Thomas Bakere of Frome, probably from France. Such a large quantity of the blue dye suggests a well-established trade for local dyers and clothiers. A 1392 survey of the town mentions tentergrounds: fields of racks for drying the cloth and five fulling mills. Where originally wool was exported to Flanders and Italy, more was increasingly retained at home for the production of cloth. Woolens such as broadcloth and the lighter kersey became primary products for the area. Surnames such as Webbe or Tayllor appear in the early 14th century and there are explicit references to cloth makers in 1475. By 1470 Somerset was the largest producer after Suffolk, making most of the undyed white broadcloths.
On 12 April 1477, a widow, Ankarette Twynyho was taken from the manor house known locally as the Old Nunnery in Lower Keyford, accused by George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence of the murder of Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence, who had died in 1476, probably of childbed-fever after birth of a short-lived son. At Warwick, she was charged with "having.....given the Duchess Isabel 'a venomous drink of ale mixed with poison' of which the Duchess has sickened from 10th October to Christmas, when she died. Ankarette protested her innocence, but a packed jury condemned her. She was sentenced and drawn to the gallows.....and hanged all within three hours." Clarence himself was imprisoned in the Tower shortly afterwards and was executed for treason early in 1478. Ankarette's grandson Roger Twynyho received from Edward IV a full posthumous pardon for Ankarette.
Monmouth Rebellion
On King Charles II's death in February 1685, the Duke of Monmouth, his illegitimate son, led the Monmouth Rebellion, landing with three ships at Lyme Regis in Dorset in early June 1685 in an attempt to take the throne from his Catholic uncle, James II. On 25 June 1685, Robert Smith, the constable of Frome declared Monmouth was King in Frome's marketplace, "as confidently as if he had the crown on his head". Frome was the first locality in England to declare for him. On 28 June, the forces of Monmouth camped in Frome, following their defeat in a skirmish with the King's forces at Norton St Philip, arriving at 4 o'clock in the morning "very wett and weary". Monmouth is reputed to have stayed in a gabled house in Cork Street, now named the Monmouth Chambers. Whatever discipline he had over his troops vanished as he dallied in Frome, unsure what to do. He left on 30 June for Shepton Mallett. At the subsequent 'Bloody Assizes' more than 500 rebels were brought in front of the court; out of these, 144 were hanged, drawn and quartered, their remains displayed across the country so that people understood the fate of those who rebelled against the king. The other rebels were subjected to transportation to America. In all, 50 Frome men were convicted. 12 men, none of them from Frome, were hanged in the town at Gibbet Hill, Gorehedge.Rise and fall of the cloth trade
The manufacture of woollen cloth was established as the town's principal industry in the 15th century. In 1542 during one of his itineraries to observe historic English and Welsh landscapes, Leland described Frome as a town that "hathe a metley good market" and "dyvers fayre stone howsys in the towne that stand y the moste by clothinge". He went on to mention what seems to be Spring Gardens where the Mells River meets the River Frome: clothiers' buildings and fulling mills: "I cam to a botome, where an other broke ran in to Frome. And in this botome dwell certayne good clothiuars havynge fayre howsys and tukkynge myles." Frome remained the only Somerset town in which this staple industry flourished.By the end of 1500s, the population was around 3,000. The trade declined but then revived again as various clothiers changed their products and expanded their business. The population doubled in size by the mid-1600s, though wages remained low for both weavers and spinners. From 1665 to 1725 further major expansion occurred, including the building of a new artisans' suburb, now known as the Trinity area, one of the earliest purpose built industrial housing in the country. The River provided power for a range of mills along its length, dyewood grinding, fulling, dyeing: 10 or more within 2km of the town. In the mid-1720s, Daniel Defoe estimated that "Frome is now reckoned to have more people in it, than the city of Bath, and some say, than even Salisbury itself...... likely to be one of the greatest and wealthiest inland towns in England".
Poverty, the decline of the wool industry in the mid-18th century, increased industrialisation, and rising food prices led to some unrest amongst the inhabitants of Frome, and there were riots during the century. By 1791, the town was described in less flattering terms than those Defoe had used 50 years earlier. A survey of 1785 listed these occupations: "47 clothiers. 5 dyers, 12 fellmongers, 3 woolstaplers, 54 spinsters, 6 fullers, 146 shearmen, 141 scribblers, 220 weavers, 5 handle setters, 8 twisters, 4 spinning jenny men, for a total of 651 and for the ancillary card making industry 5 cardboard makers, 59 card makers and 23 wire drawers." These occupations of the cloth trade formed almost half of the heads of household in the town. The Sheppard family, settled in Frome since 1558, became dominant, building new factories, purchasing land and properties, being the first to bring in machinery; the establishment of turnpike roads improved access to markets home and abroad. Scribbling, carding, spinning and fly shuttle weaving all became mechanised.
There were several public disturbances in this period. In 1754, a mob of Mendip colliers and destitute people from Frome protested against the rising cost of flour. A mill and its contents were burned down, others severely damaged. Rioters extorted money from mill owners. Four men were killed when an assault was made on another mill barricaded by the owner and three soldiers. In 1766, a miller in Beckington defended himself against a mob of 2,000, firing upon them, wounding some; all of his wheat and flour were seized and fires lit. In 1767, 500 local shearmen assembled and broke up a newly installed spinning jenny in a mill close to Frome. Among many actions across Somerset and Wiltshire, spinning jennies were smashed in a mill by a mob in 1781. In 1796, a body of Mendip colliers entered the town armed with bludgeons to force local millers to reduce their bread prices. The constable called for dragoons stationed in the town and they themselves were assaulted. Sabres were drawn and the mob dispersed, bloodied but without fatalities. Afterwards the constable was threatened with arson and murder. At a time of rising unemployment, the price of potatoes provoked a riot in Frome in 1816. Magistrates read the Riot Act and suppressed the trouble with local militia and dragoons, preventing an attack on a Sheppard factory.
By 1800, the population had increased beyond 12,000. There was a brief boost to the trade from the Napoleonic Wars, with Frome supplying blue uniform cloth of 160 miles a year in 1801. As mechanisation increased, fewer skills were required; wages fell along with living conditions. Dyeing ceased. Steam engines replaced water mills. By 1826, the parish established a blanket factory to employ the poor. A lack of investment locally meant the nation chose to buy the cheaper and lighter cloth produced elsewhere. Many mills closed as the trade steadily declined. Tucker's at Wallbridge, the last fabric mill of 'The Finest West of England Cloth', closed in 1965.