Somerset

:''This page is about the county of Somerset in the United Kingdom. For other meanings of Somerset, see Somerset (disambiguation).'' {| class="toccolours" style="border-collapse: collapse; float: right; margin-left: 1em" border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="300" |+ Somerset |- | colspan=2 style="text-align: center; background: white;" | |- | colspan=2 style="background: #f0f0f0; font-weight: bolder;" | Geography |- ! width="45%" | Status | Ceremonial counties of England & (smaller) Administrative counties of England County |- !Region: |South West England |- ! style="font-weight: normal;" | Surface area
- Total
- Admin. council
- Admin. area |List of Ceremonial counties of England by Area
1 E9 m� square kilometre
List of Administrative shire counties of England by Area
3,451 km² |- !Admin HQ: |Taunton, Somerset |- !ISO 3166-2:GB: |GB-SOM |- !ONS coding system: |40 |- !Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 3: |UKK23 |- | colspan=2 style="background: #f0f0f0; font-weight: bolder;" " | Demographics |- ! style="font-weight: normal;" | Population
- Total (2003 est.)
- Density
- Admin. council
- Admin. pop. |List of Ceremonial counties of England by Population
869,835
208 / km²
List of Administrative shire counties of England by Population
507,460 |- !Ethnicity: |98.5% White |- | colspan=2 style="background: #f0f0f0; font-weight: bolder;" " | Politics |- |colspan=2 style="text-align: center;"|Somerset County Council
http://www.somerset.gov.uk/ |- !Executive |Liberal Democrats (UK) |- ! MPs elected in the UK general election, 2005 | *Jeremy Browne *Don Foster *Liam Fox *David Heath *David Heathcoat-Amory *David Laws *Ian Liddell-Grainger *Dan Norris *John Penrose |- | colspan=2 style="background: #f0f0f0; font-weight: bolder;" " | Districts |- |colspan=2| #South Somerset #Taunton Deane #West Somerset #Sedgemoor #Mendip #Bath and North East Somerset (Unitary) #North Somerset (Unitary) |} Somerset is a Counties of England in the south-west of England. The county town is Taunton, situated at . Somerset adjoins Gloucestershire to the north east, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south east and Devon to the southwest. The county is bounded to the north by the coast of the Bristol Channel. The name is pronounced as though spelt ''Summerset''. Some local people pronounce it ''Zummerzet'' as per the local West Country Accent. The name derives from ''Somers�te'', meaning ''land of the summer people''. The name continues in the motto of the county, ''Sumorsaete ealle'', meaning "all the people of Somerset" in Old English language. Somerset is a largely rural county famous for its rolling hills and downland, the large flat Somerset Levels, and the Exmoor National Park which straddles the border with Devon. The town of Glastonbury is famous in mythology. The north of the county is administratively independent and includes the city of Bath, a World Heritage Site famous for its Roman Britain and Georgian architecture. The popular sea-side resort Weston-Super-Mare lies on the Bristol Channel coast. ==History== :''For the full article see History of Somerset'' The Somerset Levels, and specifically the dry points such as Glastonbury and Cadbury Castle, have a long history of settlement, and is known to have been settled by mesolithic hunters. The caves of the Mendip Hills were settled during the neolithic and contain extensive archaeology. Somerset, like History of Dorset to the south, held the Saxon invasion back for over a century, remaining a fronteir between the Saxons and the Romano-British and Celts. The first known use of the name ''Somers�te'' was in 845 after the region fell to the Saxons. After the Norman Conquest the county was divided into 700 fiefs, and large areas were owned by the crown. In the English Civil War Somerset was largely Royalist, unlike neighbouring Wiltshire. In 1685 the Monmouth Rebellion was played out in Somerset and neighbouring Dorset. The rebels landed at Lyme Regis and traveled north hoping to capture Bristol and Bath, but were defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. The traditional northern boundary of the county was the River Avon, Bristol, but this has crept southwards, with the creation and expansion of the City of Bristol. In 1974 a large part of northern Somerset was removed to form the southern half of the County of Avon. Avon has now been abolished, and North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset have reverted to Somerset for ceremonial purposes, but are now independent counties in their own right for local government purposes. Somerset contains England's oldest prison still in use, in the small town of Shepton Mallet, and the world's oldest known engineered roadway, the Sweet Track. ==Geology, landscape and ecology== :''For the full article see Geology of Somerset'' Much of the landscape of Somerset falls into two types, determined by the underlying geology. These landscapes are the limestone karst of the north east and the clay vales and wetlands of the south and west. In the north east the Mendip Hills are high, often bare mountain limestone hills with an extensive network of caves and underground rivers and a number of gorges, famously Cheddar Gorge. The main habitat on these hills is calcareous grassland, with some arable agriculture. To the south of the hills, on the clay substrate, are a number of small valleys which support dairy farming and drain into the Somerset Levels. This expanse of flat land, stretching up to 20 miles inland, is only a few feet above sea level and before it was drained, starting in Saxon times, much of the land was under a shallow brackish sea all year. According to legend Joseph of Arimathea sailed across the levels to Glastonbury, a dry point near the southern edge of the levels. In the far west of the county, running into Devon, is Exmoor, a high Devonian sandstone moor. The highest point in Somerset is Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor, with an altitude of 519 metres (1704 feet). ==Trade, industry and tourism== While many towns have developed small scale light engineering industries, the main part of the county contains few significant industrial centres; Bridgwater which was developed during the Industrial Revolution due to then being the West Country's leading port, and Yeovil which is important in the manufacture of helicopters. The city of Bristol sits on its Northern border, and the southern part of that city is within the historic county borders. [[image:somerset.dunster.arp.750pix.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Dunster Yarn Market was built in 1609 for the trading of local cloth]] Much of the county is scenic and unspoilt. Tourism is a major industry in the county, estimated in 2001 to support around 23,000 people. Attractions include its coastal towns, part of the Exmoor National Park, the West Somerset Railway (a heritage railway), and the museum of the Fleet Air Arm at RNAS Yeovilton. The town of Glastonbury, England is famous for its mythical associations, and open-air rock festival (actually in Pilton, Somerset), while the Cheddar Gorge is famous for caves open to visitors, as well as its locally produced cheese. Agriculture continues to be a major business in the county, if no longer a major employer. Once Apple (fruit) orchards were plentiful and to this day Somerset is linked to the production of strong cider, arguably more so than any other part of the world. The towns of Taunton and Shepton Mallet are involved with the production of cider, especially Blackthorn Dry Cider, a refined cider rooted in Somerset and sold nationwide. ==Settlements== {| align=right | |- |[[Image:Pulteney Bridge, daytime, from weir.jpg|thumb|Palladian Pulteney Bridge and the weir at Bath]] |- | |- | |} The original county town of Somerset was Somerton, but in recent years that role has been transferred to Taunton, Somerset. The county has two cities, Bath and Wells. Main settlements (with a population of more than 3,000) {|cellpadding=5 cellspacing=5 | *Bath *Bishops Hull *Bishops Lydeard *Bridgwater *Brympton *Burnham-on-Sea *Chard, Somerset *Cheddar *Comeytrowe *Crewkerne *Frome *Glastonbury *Ilminster *Martock | *Meare *Minehead *North Petherton *Shepton Mallet *Somerton *South Petherton *Street, Somerset *Taunton, Somerset *Watchet *Wellington, Somerset *Wells *Weston-super-Mare *Wincanton *Yeovil |} :''For the complete list of settlements see List of places in Somerset'' == Places of interest ==

{|cellpadding=4 cellspacing=4 border=0 || *Bath Abbey *Bristol Channel *Burrow Hill Cider Farm *Cadbury Castle *Cheddar Gorge *Chew Valley Lake *Clifton Suspension Bridge *Dunster Castle *East Somersest Railway *Exmoor *Fussell Iron Works *Gartell Light Railway *Georgian Bath *Glastonbury Abbey *Glastonbury Tor || *Ham Hill *Kennet and Avon Canal *Mendip Hills *Montacute House *River Avon, Bristol *River Chew *Roman Baths *Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway *Somerset Levels *Stanton Drew *Taunton Stop Line *Wells Cathedral *West Somerset Railway *Wookey Hole |} == Internal links == *England *English (people) *Music of Somerset == External links == * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset BBC Somerset] * [http://www.somerset.gov.uk/ Somerset County Council] * [http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/ Bath & North East Somerset Council] * [http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/ North Somerset Council] * [http://www.somersetgateway.com/history/ Somerset Gateway] * [http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scripts/nthandbook.dll?ACTION=PROPERTY&PROPERTYID=304/ Dunster Castle Website - National Trust] ==References== * 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, [http://34.1911encyclopedia.org/S/SO/SOMERSETSHIRE.htm "Somersetshire"]. simple:Somerset Somerset

Somerset

Somerset is a Counties of England in the south-west of England. Its county town was historically Somerton but is today Taunton. Somerset adjoins Gloucestershire to the north east, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south east and Devon to the southwest. Much of its northern edge is the shoreline of the Bristol Channel. Somerton was the original county town, but in recent years that role has been transferred to Taunton, England. It has two cities, Bath and Wells - the latter of which is one of the smallest in the country Counties of England

Somerset

== A couple of comments == This is a very good article. When I put Buckinghamshire through FAC at the beginning of the year (it was the featured article on wikipedia on May 19 2004) one of the comments that was made was that the list of places took away from the prose of the article - that it would be better if the prose was longer than the list, rather than the other way around. So I created List of places in Buckinghamshire (which I'm proud to say is now complete!), kept the towns in the article and left the rest of the places to the list. The consensus was that this was a more acceptable article style than grouping everything together in the one article. I have created List of places in Somerset (I did it before I saw that you had a complete list here) and I feel it'll make the article more readable and expandable if the list was there, rather than here. Second comment: I'm pretty sure having a population over 3,000 does not automatically turn a place into a town. If this were the case most of the places in the (somewhat overpopulated) South East of England would be classed as towns, which they're not. I believe (though it'll take me a trip to the local record office to have it confirmed) that the archaic system of requiring royal charter to hold either a market or fair is still the official system for defining a town in the UK. Other than that, well done with the article. -- User:Francs2000 | User talk:Francs2000 18:42, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC) :Yeah, 3,000 was a arbitrary figure I've used on Somerset, Dorset and Devon as a way of indicating settlements of a significant size; perhaps the word should have been "settlements" not "towns". (Geographers tend to use 2,500 as their arbitrary figure, but I found this to be a bit inclusive) User:Steinsky User talk:Steinsky 19:32, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::Wendover in Bucks has a population of about 10,000, and I still get browsers informaing me that it's a village... It's not by the way because it has royal charter. ::I've altered the article to my suggestion above, I hope you don't mind. -- User:Francs2000 | User talk:Francs2000 21:31, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC) == History of the name of Somerset == Isn't Somerset named after the town of Somerton just like Dorset is named after Dorchester? This article says it's named after the 'summer people'. :Presumably the town and the county are both named after the summer people. The "set" in Dorset (and probably Somerset) is "saete", meaning the dwellers of. User:Steinsky User talk:Steinsky 13:50, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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