About
About this website
The CrewkerneTown website comes to you from local entrepreneur, Marcus Barrett, who first started a website for Crewkerne in 2005. The site exists to promote our local community (including neighbouring villages), its people, groups and businesses and does not cost the taxpayer. Groups and organisations which are not-for-profit are able to have free advertising on the site (please visit the 'Community' tab above), others such as local authorities and businesses are charged a very small fee so this service can be kept going.
This new site (we used to be CrewkerneTown.co.uk) is speeded up, slimmed down, and added to - attempts have been made to create a more flexible and cheaper way for small businesses to advertise - often only costing £25 per year (see Directory tab above). New features have been added, new pages and information updated - if you wish to add something then please contact me. And, as ever, this is all privately run and funded - so it hasn't cost the Crewkerne community.
Please contact me if you have any comments, queries or suggestions.
Click here to contact us
All best wishes,
Marcus
ABOUT CREWKERNE
Crewkerne is a market town now of around 7,000 residents.
For full background on Crewkerne's important archaeological remains, you may wish to read Somerset Councty Council's survey which was revised in 2003 in co-ordination with English Heritage.
[Unfortunately, the SCC link below seems to have been removed by SCC, as soon as I locate the new URL for this document, I will amend this link.]
Archaeological Assessment of Crewkerne,
Richardson & Webster, 2003
Somerset County Council & English Heritage
http://www.somerset.gov.uk/somerset/cultureheritage/heritage/projects/eus/crewkerne/
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The following text is an excerpt from Collinson’s Eighteenth-Century study of the area. As with any ‘antiquarian’ analysis, caution as to actual historicity should be applied.
From Collinson, History & Antiquities of Somerset (1791)
Crewkerne
A very ancient town, known in the Saxon times by the name of Crucerne, which is compounded of the words Cruce a cross, and Earne a cottage, or place of retirement. There is no doubt that this name was applied to it in the early ages of Christianity, when churches were rare, and hermitages or cells were the usual places of religious associations.
It is situated in a rich and fertile vale, well wooded and watered, and surrounded with cultivated eminence, which command extensive and very beautiful prospects. The town consists principally of five streets…
[John] Leland visited this town… “Crewkerne (says he) is sette under the rootes of an hille. Ther I saw nothing very notable. Yet ther ys a praty crosse environid with smaul pillers, and a praty toune house yn the market place.”
The market is held on Saturdays, and there is a fair for cattle on the fourth of September.
