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Frome ( ) is a town and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
in eastern
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the
Mendip Hills, and centres on the
River Frome. The town, about south of
Bath, is the largest in the
Mendip district of Somerset and is part of the
parliamentary constituency
An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...
of
Somerton and Frome. The population was 28,559 in 2021.
Frome was one of the largest towns in Somerset until the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, and was larger than Bath from AD 950 until 1650. The town first grew due to the
wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. ...
and
cloth
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
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
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
, and most of the centre falls within a
conservation area. In the 2011 census, the population was given as 26,203.
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
Frome Heritage Museum in Frome, Somerset, England houses a collection of local history and has a particularly important collection of artefacts from the bronze foundry of J.W.Singer.
Collections
There are two display rooms and a library, with ...
.
In 2014, Frome was named by ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' 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
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' 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
Whatley Quarry, is a limestone quarry owned by Hanson plc, near the village of Whatley on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England.
The quarry exhibits pale to dark grey Carboniferous Limestone with small area of overlying horizontally bedded buf ...
near
Mells suggest the presence of late
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...
man.
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
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 (Orchardleigh 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
Nunney is a village and civil parish in the Mendip local government district within the English county of Somerset. It is located south-west of Frome and the parish includes the hamlet of Holwell.
The name of the village comes from Old Englis ...
to the south-west.
Iron Age hill forts lie to the west (
Kingsdown,
Tedbury
Tedbury (c. 1780, Botany Bay – 1810, Parramatta), also known as ''Tidbury'' and ''Tjedboro'', was a Darug Aboriginal Australian involved in frequent acts of resistance to British colonists in the early years of New South Wales. He was the s ...
and
Wadbury) and to the east (
Cley Hill
Cley Hill () is a prominent hill to the west of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. Its summit has a commanding view of the Wiltshire / Somerset county boundary, at elevation. The land is in Corsley parish and is owned by the National Trust.
A ...
and
Roddenberry).
Roman
There is some limited evidence of Roman settlement in the area. The remains of a
villa
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became s ...
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. Iron Age forts in the area (recorded above) were re-occupied by the Roman military: Kingsdown and Tedbury.
A Roman road ran from the west of the
Mendips
The Mendip Hills (commonly called the Mendips) is a range of limestone hills to the south of Bristol and Bath in Somerset, England. Running from Weston-super-Mare and the Bristol Channel in the west to the Frome valley in the east, the hills ...
passing south of Frome en route to
Old Sarum
Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the now ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest r ...
(Salisbury) and
Clausentum
Clausentum was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. The site is believed to be located in Bitterne Manor, which is now a suburb of Southampton.
Identification
Route VII of the Antonine Itinerary documents the Roman settlement of Clau ...
(
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
) or to Moriconium (
Hamworthy
Hamworthy is a village, parish, peninsula and suburb of Poole in Dorset, England. It is sited on a peninsula of approximately that is bordered by the town of Upton to the north, Poole Harbour to the south, Lytchett Bay to the west and Holes B ...
near
Poole), 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
Aquae Sulis (Latin for ''Waters of Sulis'') was a small town in the Roman province of Britannia. Today it is the English city of Bath, Somerset. The Antonine Itinerary register of Roman roads lists the town as ''Aquis Sulis.'' Ptolemy records t ...
(Bath), 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
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
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
The Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) is a voluntary programme run by the United Kingdom government to record the increasing numbers of small finds of archaeological interest found by members of the public. The scheme begun in 1997 and now covers ...
, and some are now on display in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. 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.
Origin of 'Frome'
The name Frome comes from the
Brythonic word *''frāmā'' (
Modern Welsh
The history of the Welsh language (Welsh: ''Hanes yr iaith Gymraeg'') spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Primitive Welsh, Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.
Origins
Welsh evolved from British, the C ...
''ffraw'') meaning fair, fine or brisk and describing the flow of the river.
In 2019 the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
ranked Frome as, among places in the UK, having the most difficult name to pronounce.
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" (Latin: "juxta fluvium qui vocatur From").
The Saxon kings appear to have used Frome as a base from which to hunt in
Selwood Forest
The ancient Selwood Forest ran approximately between Gillingham in Dorset and Chippenham in Wiltshire. It is described by the historian Barbara Yorke as a "formidable natural obstacle" in the Anglo-Saxon period, which was a significant boundar ...
. In 934 a ''
witenagemot
The Witan () was the king's council in Anglo-Saxon England from before the seventh century until the 11th century. It was composed of the leading magnates, both ecclesiastic and secular, and meetings of the council were sometimes called the Wi ...
'' 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
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his fir ...
, now regarded as the first king of England. Æthelstan's half-brother, King
Eadred
Eadred (c. 923 – 23 November 955) was King of the English from 26 May 946 until his death. He was the younger son of Edward the Elder and his third wife Eadgifu, and a grandson of Alfred the Great. His elder brother, Edmund, was killed try ...
(son of
Edward the Elder
Edward the Elder (17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924. He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. When Edward succeeded to the throne, he had to defeat a challenge from his cousin ...
), died in Frome on 23 November 955.
Medieval
At the time of the
Domesday Survey
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
, the manor was owned by
King William,
and was the principal settlement of the largest and wealthiest
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
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 (although it did let them out again) 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 (or little) Frome, as well as other witnesses. Additionally,
Henry VII did grant a charter to Edmund Leversedge, then
lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
, giving him the right to hold fairs on 22 July and 21 September. The parish was part of the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
of
Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...
.
Hales Castle was built, probably in the years immediately after the
Norman conquest of England in 1066. The circular
ringwork
A ringwork is a form of fortified defensive structure, usually circular or oval in shape. Ringworks are essentially motte-and-bailey castles without the motte. Defences were usually earthworks in the form of a ditch and bank surrounding the sit ...
is in diameter and stands on the northern slope of Roddenbury Hill, close to the
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostl ...
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
Nunney Castle is a medieval castle at Nunney in the English county of Somerset. Built in the late 14th century by Sir John Delamare on the profits of his involvement in the Hundred Years War, the moated castle's architectural style, possibly in ...
, "aesthetically the most impressive castle in Somerset," built from 1373 onwards, surrounded by a moat.
In 1369 there is a record of 'three tuns of
woad
''Isatis tinctoria'', also called woad (), dyer's woad, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant. Its genus name, Isatis, derives from ...
’ 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
tenterground
A tenterground, tenter ground or teneter-field was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called " tenters" and stretched taut using " tenter hooks", so that the cloth would dry fl ...
s: fields of racks for drying the cloth and five
fulling
Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
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
Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 to 75% wider than its finished width) and then he ...
and the lighter
kersey became primary products for the area. Surnames such as Webbe (weaver) 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. The industry had become the town’s principal base of employment.
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
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (21 October 144918 February 1478), was the 6th son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He played an important role in the ...
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. The petition he submitted to the king later that year describes fully the circumstances of the case, well illustrating the quasi-kingly high-handedness of Clarence.
Monmouth's Rebellion
On King Charles II's death in February 1685, the
Duke of Monmouth
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ranke ...
, his illegitimate son led the
Monmouth Rebellion, landing with three ships at
Lyme Regis
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Heri ...
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
Norton St Philip is a village and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The village lies about south of the city of Bath and north of the town of Frome on the eastern slopes of the Mendip Hills. It is situated on the A366 be ...
, 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
Battle of Sedgemoor
The Battle of Sedgemoor was the last and decisive engagement between the Kingdom of England and rebels led by the Duke of Monmouth during the Monmouth rebellion, fought on 6 July 1685, and took place at Westonzoyland near Bridgwater in Somerse ...
on 6 July, he was defeated. Captured on 8 July, he was taken to the
Tower of London
The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is sep ...
and executed on 15 July on
Tower Hill
Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher gro ...
by
Jack Ketch
John Ketch (died November 1686), generally known as Jack Ketch, was an infamous English executioner employed by King Charles II. He became famous through the way he performed his duties during the tumults of the 1680s, when he was often mentio ...
.
At the subsequent ‘
Bloody Assizes
The Bloody Assizes were a series of trials started at Winchester on 25 August 1685 in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which ended the Monmouth Rebellion in England.
History
There were five judges: Sir William Montague (Lord Chief B ...
’ 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
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, ...
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 2 km of the town. Families of clothiers gradually came to be the principal landowners in the town, with the manor of Frome itself finally passing into the ownership of a cloth merchant in 1714.
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
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of ...
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 Card or The Card may refer to:
* Various types of plastic cards:
**By type
***Magnetic stripe card
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*** Digital card
**By function
***Payment card
****Credit card
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****EC-card
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****European Health Insur ...
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 (rough carding), carding, spinning and fly shuttle weaving all became mechanised.
There were several public disturbances throughout this period. In 1754 a mob of Mendip colliers together with 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 2000, 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
The spinning jenny is a multi- spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Sta ...
in a mill close to Frome. Among many actions across Somerset and
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, 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
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
, Frome supplying blue uniform cloth: 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.
To the present day
In the early 19th century, plans were developed to reinvigorate the town and once again elevate it to its former position as a more important town than Bath. These plans, the idea of
Thomas Bunn, a man of independent means inherited from his father, mostly failed to come to fruition, although some public buildings were erected and a wide new approach road to the town centre from the south was cut (named Bath Street after the landowner,
Lord Bath of
Longleat
Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquess of Bath, Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of War ...
House).
Whilst wool remained an important part of the town's economy into the 19th (and even 20th) centuries, other industries were established in the town. A bell-foundry started in 1684 by William Cockey grew to be a major producer of components for the developing
gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
industry and employer of 800 people, as a new enterprise of his descendant,
Edward Cockey
Edward Cockey (1781–1860) was an industrial entrepreneur in Frome, Somerset, England, descended from a local family of metalworkers.
Background
The early part of the nineteenth century was a hard time for Frome, industry declining over the y ...
The
J W Singer brass foundry and bronze-casting works, was a major employer and produced bronze statues. John Webb Singer was born in Frome and established his art metal work foundry in 1851. They made brass ornaments for local churches and became known through the
Oxford Movement within the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...
which led to increasing demand for church ornaments. In addition to church ornaments the firm developed new facilities, opened as the Frome Art Metalworks in 1866, and then the expertise to create large statues. One of the first statues cast in 1889 was that of
General Gordon riding a camel. The firm was responsible for the bronze statue of
Boudica with her daughters in her war chariot (furnished with
scythes
Scythes ( grc, Σκύθης, ''Skýthi̱s'') was tyrant or ruler of Zancle in Sicily. He was appointed to that post in about 494 BC by Hippocrates of Gela.
The Zanclaeans had contacted Ionian leaders to invite colonists to join them in founding a ...
after the
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
fashion), which was commissioned by
Prince Albert and executed by
Thomas Thornycroft
Thomas Thornycroft (19 May 1815 – 30 August 1885) was an English sculptor and engineer.
Biography
Thornycroft was born at Great Tidnock, near Gawsworth, Cheshire, the eldest son of John Thornycroft, a farmer. He was educated at Congleton ...
. It was unveiled in 1902, 17 years after Thornycroft's death, and now stands next to
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side.
The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the ...
and the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
, London.
[Mark Stocker, 'Thornycroft, Thomas (1815–1885)’, '']Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...
'', Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, September 2004 online edn, October 200
accessed 2 January 2009 The statue of
Lady Justice
Lady Justice ( la, Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia.
Lady Justice originates from the ...
on the dome above the
Old Bailey was executed by the British sculptor,
F. W. Pomeroy and cast by Singers. The statue of
Alfred the Great at
Winchester was a further commission. The statues from Singers have been exported around the world. Printing was another major industry, with the Butler and Tanner printworks being set up in the middle of the century.
Brewing was another source of employment.
Utility services came quite early in Frome with Cockey setting up a gas facility in Welshpool in 1831. Water was available from springs; the principal source was from a fountain at the foot of Church Steps, fed by stream that flowed under the graveyard. It was not until 1880, after a local company failed to deliver, that local government stepped in and opened a Water Works with a piped supply system. A sewage farm was not installed until 1885. It was 1903 before mains electricity was introduced into the town.
In
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
a large number of men from Frome and the surrounding villages enlisted. The
Somerset Infantry was the primary recruiter; other county regiments from around Somerset took in many others. Some born in Frome joined up in the country they had emigrated to:
Australia and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. The
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
, the
Royal Flying Corps, the
British Red Cross
The British Red Cross Society is the United Kingdom body of the worldwide neutral and impartial humanitarian network the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The society was formed in 1870, and is a registered charity with more ...
and the
Royal Army Medical Corps all took in volunteers and conscripts, as did multiple different regiments from across the UK. Over 450 lives, ranging from a brigadier-general to scores of privates and able seamen, were lost in the conflict, now recorded on memorials throughout the area and elsewhere. A record of more than 140 local survivors of WWI has been published. These survivors included Charlie Robbins who was the model for the bronze statue forged by the
Singer company
Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of consumer sewing machines, first established as I. M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac Singer, Isaac M. Singer with New York lawyer Edward Cabot Clark, Edward C. Clark. Best known for its sewing ma ...
which now stands as the memorial for the fallen of Frome.
The population fell and in the 1930s it was slightly smaller than it had been in the mid 19th century. Other industries such as printing, light engineering, metal casting, carpeting and dairying continued,
many taking old premises from the cloth mills and others being sited at the new Marston Road Trading Estate which led to growth after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, including the construction of
council houses
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 a ...
.
Governance and public services
Local government
The town elects three members to
Somerset County Council, each from a separate county division. At the last election in
May 2017, the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
won in two divisions (East and West) and the
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
won Frome North.
Frome is the largest town within the Somerset
non-metropolitan district
Non-metropolitan districts, or colloquially "shire districts", are a type of Districts of England, local government district in England. As created, they are sub-divisions of non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties (colloquially ''shi ...
of
Mendip, although the administrative centre is
Shepton Mallet. Prior to 1974 it was administered by Frome Urban District.
Frome has eleven councillors on
Mendip District Council
Mendip may refer to:
*Mendip District, a local government district of Somerset, England
*Mendip Hills, a group of hills in Somerset, England
**Mendip Way, a footpath across the Mendip Hills
** Mendip TV Mast, a transmitter in the Mendips area
*Fore ...
, two from each of the town council wards except for Oakfield, which elects one. After the 2019 elections, five were
Liberal Democrats, four for The Green Party, one for the Conservatives and one elected as an
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
.
The civil parish of Frome has adopted the style of a town, and there is a
Town Council
A town council, city council or municipal council is a form of local government for small municipalities.
Usage of the term varies under different jurisdictions.
Republic of Ireland
Town Councils in the Republic of Ireland were the second t ...
of 17 members. Councillors are elected by eight wards: three each for Berkley Down, college and Keyford wards, two each for Market, Oakfield and Park wards, and one each for the Highpoint and Innox wards. In May 2019 all 17 council members elected were members of the
Independents for Frome party (ifF).
Initiatives
In early 2015, the UK's first high street
Library of Things was set up in the town. In one year (May 2018 to April 2019), use of the shop helped avoid 92 tonnes CO2e of greenhouse gas emissions, saved 117,000 kg of material usage and avoided 10 tonnes of manufacturing waste. In the same period its members collectively saved £66,800 by borrowing instead of buying items.
The Town Council installed the first
community fridge in the country in May 2016; 90,000 items a year have been saved from landfill. This was joined by a community larder in October 2017.
On 13 December 2017 the Town Council unanimously agreed to become a 'single-use plastic'-free council.
Frome has an online market, the Food Hub launched in November 2018, where sustainable supplies from local farmers and food producers can be sourced, either for collection or by delivery (central Frome only).
There are a number of public green spaces within the town, both formal and informal; some are substantial such as the Victoria Park or the Rodden Meadow; others may be smaller but are valued within their neighbourhoods, such as Weylands or the Dippy. Many of the public spaces have organised litter picks, arranged by local community groups.
Parliament
The town was not represented in
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...
until given one member in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
by the
Reform Act of 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...
. The constituency elected a female MP in 1934:
Mavis Tate
Mavis Constance Tate (born Maybird Hogg; 17 August 1893 – 5 June 1947) was a British Conservative politician and campaigner for British women's rights.
Life
Her first marriage, to Captain G. H. Gott, lasted from 1915 until their divorce in 1 ...
. Separate representation was abolished for the
1950 general election, with Frome itself being transferred to the
Wells division, whilst most of the remainder of the constituency formed the bulk of the new
Somerset North constituency. Further changes took place for the
1983 general election when the current
Somerton and Frome constituency was created.
The seat has been held by
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP)
David Warburton since 2015. At the 2017 general election, with an improved turnout of 75.7%, Warburton increased his share of the vote to 56.7%.
Reform Act violence
Frome was given the right to elect its own member of Parliament, one of 67 new constituencies, by the
Reform Act 1832. This Act removed
rotten boroughs like
Old Sarum
Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, South West England, is the now ruined and deserted site of the earliest settlement of Salisbury. Situated on a hill about north of modern Salisbury near the A345 road, the settlement appears in some of the earliest r ...
(with three houses and seven voters to elect two MPs) and included for the first time new electors such as small landowners, tenant farmers and shopkeepers; voters were defined as male persons, so women were formally excluded.
The election was disputed by two well-known local men: Sir Thomas Champneys and
Thomas Sheppard, a Tory and a Radical or Whig respectively. There was no serious trouble until the election itself. The two were personal enemies, with a long history of property dealings between their families over 180 years.
Champneys
Champneys is an English country house and its associated estate near Tring, Hertfordshire. The mansion is run as a destination spa by a business using "Champneys" as the brand name for a group of spa resorts and day spas.
History
The earlies ...
, the second baronet, may have been popular but he was disreputable, his
Orchardleigh Estate in decline and in debt. In 1820 Sheppard had been a key witness when Sir Thomas was accused of sodomy; the case was not proven.
Voting at that time was in person in public, the hustings taking place in Cork Street just off the Market Place. The
Frome county constituency area included Weston, Radstock, Bathampton, Batheaston as well as freeholders in Bath; there were only 322 registered voters. On the first day, 10 December, Champneys arrived with hundreds of men and boys, many armed with lead-loaded bludgeons and cudgels. They attacked Sheppard's supporters. Thomas Bunn, a local man of property, recollected what he saw:
Sheppard arrived, backed by 500 men, all said to be unarmed.
A Sheppard supporter, Thomas Ford was badly injured and died later. Special constables were sworn in by the magistrates in the George Inn. The mob besieged the building and smashed the windows. Sheppard retreated to his home, Fromefield House, guarded by 300 men. Dragoons were brought from Trowbridge to neighbouring Beckington.
Early on the second day, Sheppard had gained 163 votes, more than half of those entitled to vote. Shouting 'Champneys for ever', the opponents attacked the Crown Inn trying to get at Sheppard in the George Inn next door. A draper's house was completely destroyed. Several constables were stoned and injured. The Riot Act was read. Constables with carbines opened fire. At 3 in the afternoon the Dragoons arrived and the battle was halted. Having won 100 votes to Sheppard's 163, Champneys resigned and returned to Orchardleigh. Thomas Sheppard won the next three elections and remained Frome's MP until 1847.
One notable successor of Sheppard was elected in 1868:
Thomas Hughes
Thomas Hughes (20 October 182222 March 1896) was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author. He is most famous for his novel ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. ...
, author of ''
Tom Brown's School Days
''Tom Brown's School Days'' (sometimes written ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'', also published under the titles ''Tom Brown at Rugby'', ''School Days at Rugby'', and ''Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby'') is an 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes. The stor ...
'', as a
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
under
Gladstone.
Healthcare
The town has a
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
community hospital, originally operated by Somerset
Primary Care Trust, located on the site of the former Showground at Fromefield. The new hospital was opened in 2008, replacing the former Frome Victoria Hospital in Park Road which had been in use since 1901. The nearest
general hospital is the
Royal United Hospital
The Royal United Hospital (RUH) is a major acute-care hospital in the Weston suburb of Bath, England, which lies approximately west of the city centre. The hospital has 565 beds and occupies a site. It is the area's major accident and emergenc ...
in Bath.
Compassionate Frome is a programme to combat loneliness amongst residents, pioneered by a local GP, Helen Kingston, in 2013. It proved very successful and reduced emergency hospital admissions by 17% over three years when in the rest of the county they rose by 29%, even though demographics were similar. "There are no other interventions which have ever reduced population emergency admissions like this", said one doctor. The programme's success has been credited in part with attracting an influx of middle-class newcomers to the town. Frome is "at the vanguard" of a growing movement to better incorporate nonclinical solutions into medical care, according to one doctor. Since 2016 there has been an effort to role out the scheme across the entire Mendip area.
Geography
The town rests on
Forest Marble which dates back to the
Middle Jurassic,
[Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Middle Jurassic, Europe)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 538–541. .] and has been used for local building. The area surrounding the town is
Cornbrash
The Cornbrash Formation is a Middle Jurassic geological formation in England. It ranges in age from Bathonian to Callovian, the uppermost part of the Middle Jurassic. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the form ...
,
Oxford Clay
The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the ...
and
Greensand
Greensand or green sand is a sand or sandstone which has a greenish color. This term is specifically applied to shallow marine sediment that contains noticeable quantities of rounded greenish grains. These grains are called ''glauconies'' and co ...
.
Frome is unevenly built on high ground above the River Frome, which is crossed by a bridge in the town centre. The town centre is approximately above sea-level, whilst the outer parts of the town are between and above sea-level.
[Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale map, grid reference ST775475]
The main areas of the town are (approximately clockwise from the north-west): Innox Hill, Welshmill, Packsaddle, Fromefield, Stonebridge, Clink, Berkley Down, Easthill, Wallbridge, The Mount, Keyford and Lower Keyford, Marston Gate, The Butts, Critchill, Trinity, and Gould's Ground.
When Frome was founded in the 7th century AD, it lay in the centre of the
Selwood Forest
The ancient Selwood Forest ran approximately between Gillingham in Dorset and Chippenham in Wiltshire. It is described by the historian Barbara Yorke as a "formidable natural obstacle" in the Anglo-Saxon period, which was a significant boundar ...
, Saxon Sealhwudu or 'Sallow Wood', also known as Coit Mawr, Great Wood, by the Welsh. It stretched from
Gillingham in Dorset to
Chippenham in Wiltshire, from
Bruton
Bruton ( ) is a market town, electoral ward, and civil parish in Somerset, England, on the River Brue and the A359 between Frome and Yeovil. It is 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Shepton Mallet, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill, 10 ...
to Warminster. It served as a boundary between Anglo-Saxon Wessex and the British kingdom of
Dumnonia
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for a Brythonic kingdom that existed in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries CE in the more westerly parts of present-day South West England. It was centred in the area of modern Devon, ...
in the west. In 1086 it became a
royal forest
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the ...
. Gradually
deforestation
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated ...
took place. Frome was often called Frome Selwood. Today the nearby countryside is still richly wooded, for example on the Longleat,
Maiden Bradley
Maiden Bradley is a village in south-west Wiltshire, England, about south-west of Warminster and bordering the county of Somerset. The B3092 road between Frome and Mere forms the village street. Bradley House, the seat of the Duke of Somerse ...
and
Stourhead estates. Around the town the land is predominantly agricultural, with arable cropping, dairy farming and orchards. To the west of the town, on the edge of the Mendip Hills, there are large active
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
quarries
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...
, such as
Whatley Quarry
Whatley Quarry, is a limestone quarry owned by Hanson plc, near the village of Whatley on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England.
The quarry exhibits pale to dark grey Carboniferous Limestone with small area of overlying horizontally bedded buf ...
and
Torr Works
Torr Works quarry, is a limestone quarry at East Cranmore, near Shepton Mallet on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England. The quarry was formerly known as Merehead, a name which has been retained for its rail depot on the opposite side of the A3 ...
, formerly known as Merehead, along with disused quarries. Whatley Quarry is served by a
dedicated railway line which branches off the main line at Frome, passes through the town centre and out through the Welshmill and Spring Gardens areas in the north-west quadrant of the town.
Along with the rest of
South West England
South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities ...
, Frome has a
temperate climate
In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout ...
which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of England. The annual mean temperature is about 10 °C (50 °F) with
seasonal
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...
and
diurnal variations, but due to the modifying effect of the sea, the range is less than in most other parts of the United Kingdom. January is the coldest month with mean minimum temperatures between 1 °C (34 °F) and 2 °C (36 °F). July and August are the warmest months in the region with mean daily maxima around 21 °C (70 °F). In general, December is the dullest month and June the sunniest. The south west of England enjoys a favoured location, particularly in summer, when the
Azores High
The Azores High also known as North Atlantic (Subtropical) High/Anticyclone or the Bermuda-Azores High, is a large subtropical semi-permanent centre of high atmospheric pressure typically found south of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, at the Ho ...
extends its influence north-eastwards towards the UK.
Cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
often forms inland, especially near hills, and reduces exposure to sunshine. The average annual sunshine totals around 1600 hours.
Rainfall
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...
tends to be associated with
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
depressions or with convection. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower
cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
s and a large proportion of the annual precipitation falls from showers and
thunderstorms
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are somet ...
at this time of year. Average rainfall is around 800–900 mm (31–35 in). About 8–15 days of
snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean
wind
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...
speeds, with June to August having the lightest. The predominant wind direction is from the south west.
Demography
The population of Frome was 12,240 in the 1831 census, however it then declined to 11,057 in 1901 and remained between 11,000 and 12,000 until the 1970s. Since then, it has increased, nearly doubling to over 23,000 in 1991. In the 2011 census, the population was 26,203, comprising 11,863 (48.4%) males and 12,647 (51.6%) females. 7,674 (31.3%) residents were aged 16 or below, 13,150 (63.3%) between 16 and 65, and 3,686 (15.0%) aged 65 or over.
In the
2001 census of the population aged between 16 and 74, 11,580 (67%) were in employment, with only 513 (3%) unemployed (the remainder being otherwise economically inactive). About 68% of those in employment were in service industries, with the remainder in manufacturing. 4,323 people were employed in managerial or professional occupations, 1,362 were self-employed, and 4,635 in routine and semi-routine occupations. 10,198 households were recorded in the town, of which 7,679 (75%) were owner-occupied, 981 (10%) rented from private landlords, and 1,538 (15%) rented from the local authority or other social landlord. 10,122 (99.3%) heads of households were white.
Economy
The metal-working and printing industries which replaced wool as Frome's main industry have declined but not left the town. Singers still has a presence in the town, as does Butler and Tanner, although the latter (now named Butler Tanner and Dennis following a take-over) hit major financial difficulties in 2008, and made two-thirds of its workforce redundant.
Almost half of the economically active population of Frome commute to work outside the town (in Bath,
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
,
Warminster
Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-c ...
,
Westbury or further afield). About 2,700 people commute into the town. A substantial part of the workforce has no formal qualifications and is poorly skilled, leaving them vulnerable to a decline in manufacturing work.
There is no major local government employment in the town, and the principal public sector employers are the
primary care trust and the schools.
Frome town centre contains a considerable number of independent shops, and a few chain stores. Retail is primarily aimed at serving the local population's requirements for food (there are two large supermarkets on opposite edges of the town, and three smaller supermarkets in the town centre), basic clothing, health and beauty,
DIY
"Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...
and some electrical goods. However studies show that only about a quarter of the town's population do their non-food shopping in the town.
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.
Because ...
s and
building societies
A building society is a financial institution owned by its members as a mutual organization. Building societies offer banking and related financial services, especially savings and mortgage lending. Building societies exist in the United Kingdo ...
have branches in the town centre.
Markets are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the town centre: some in the Market Yard car park, and others in the former agricultural warehouse, the ''Cheese and Grain''. From March to December, on the first Sunday of each Monday, a street market known as 'The Independent' is held. Attended by an average of 10,000 people, the main street is closed to traffic; it is filled with stalls that extend up Stony Street and St Catherine's Hill and to the main car park. Antiques, artisan wares, food and drink, designer & vintage clothing, plants fill the 150+ stalls. The Saturday cattle market was moved from the centre of the town to nearby
Standerwick
Beckington is a village and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, across the River Frome from Lullington about three miles north of Frome. According to the 2011 census the parish, which includes the hamlet of Rudge, which ...
in the 1980s. In 2003, Frome was granted
Fairtrade Town
The Fair Trade Towns campaign is the result of a grass-roots citizens movement that started in the UK in 2001 (see below). It allows citizens to get together in order to self-proclaim their town (or other local geographical area) as a region that ...
status.
A ''Vision for Frome 2008–2028'' has been developed following a consultation with local people in the spring of 2008 which received over 3,000 responses.
Mendip District Council and Mendip
Strategic Partnership have consulted on a ''Community Strategy'' and ''Local Development Framework'' for the period to 2026 which includes building 2,500–2,600 new homes, providing more employment and office space, developing a new secondary school and two new primary schools, remodelling the town centre and encouraging a wider range of retailers and leisure providers into the town.
There have been a number of significant housing developments within Frome, many on former industrial sites, and these are continuing with plans for the redevelopment of a site at Saxonvale and Garsdale to include several hundred dwellings, shops and a 'cultural quarter' containing workshops for artists.
In August 2018 Mendip District Council purchased two areas of Saxonvale, neglected for over twenty years. Combining this with land belonging to Frome Town Council, a new regeneration plan has been drawn up, now under public consultation.
Culture
Frome has a vibrant arts scene. The high-point is the annual ten-day
Frome Festival in July, which in recent years has included more than 160 events held at various venues in and around the town. The town is host to a number of artists, many of whom open their studios to the public during the Festival. The event includes a Children's Festival.
There are a variety of cultural & community events that have become regular features of the town's life throughout the year: the Window Wonderland (early March), Frome Busks (late March), Apple Day (21 October), Fireworks (November) and Light the Night: lanterns and the Christmas Lights switch-on (late November). The Carnival (September) is part of the Wessex Grand Prix circuit of the
West Country Carnival
The West Country Carnival Circuits are an annual celebration featuring a parade of illuminated carts in the English West Country. The celebration dates back to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The purpose is to raise money for local charities.
The s ...
. A national Town Crier festival is held each year in June; for the third year running, it is the largest such festival in Britain, hosting 25 town criers.
There are two theatres in Frome: The Memorial Theatre was built in 1924 in memory of the fallen of the World War I, while the 240-seat Merlin Theatre is part of the
Frome Community College campus.
Frome is home to Somerset's first and only pub theatre: Nevertheless, Productions, which promotes new drama in small venues around the town. The Cheese and Grain, a former farm produce warehouse which was converted into a market and concert hall in 1997, has a capacity of up to 800 and hosts regular pop concerts. Locally based musicians include American
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ...
Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis
Alfred James Ellis (April 21, 1941 – September 23, 2021), known as Pee Wee Ellis due to his diminutive stature, was an American saxophonist, composer, and arranger. With a background in jazz, he was a member of James Brown's band in the ...
and Irish folk singer
Cara Dillon as well as hardcore punk bands More Than Life, Ghost of the Avalanche and Landscapes. On Friday, 24 February 2017, the
Foo Fighters played a secret intimate show at the Cheese and Grain venue to announce their
Glastonbury
Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbur ...
2017 Pyramid Stage headlining slot on the Saturday night of the festival.
Frome's only cinema, the Westway, is in Cork Street in the town centre, which closed in March 2016 and re-opened February 2017, after changing hands and undergoing extensive refurbishment. A fire at the cinema in October 2016 was thought to have been started deliberately. There is an arts centre, The Black Swan, within which the information point for Discover Frome is based.
The Frome & District Agricultural Society holds an annual Agricultural & Cheese Show in September. This was formerly held on the Showground at Fromefield, but in recent years has moved to West Woodland, to the south of the town. Early markets were known as cheese fairs; the Agricultural Society was formed in 1861 and held its first fair. In 1875 the creation of the Market Hall (now the Cheese and Grain) and of a railway siding into the Cattle Market (now the main car park) established Frome as a cheese town – one sale alone recorded 28½ tons of
Cheddar
Cheddar most often refers to either:
*Cheddar cheese
*Cheddar, Somerset, the village after which Cheddar cheese is named
Cheddar may also refer to:
Places
* Cheddar, Ontario, Canada
* Cheddar Yeo, a river which flows through Cheddar Gorge and t ...
.
The Frome Society for Local Study was founded in 1958 to make the history of Frome and the district better known, and to preserve its historic buildings and records; there is an annual programme of winter lectures and summer visits to places of interest as well as a wide range of research, donations, and publications. It has funded plaques across the town, to mark significant buildings and prominent persons.
The
Frome Museum
Frome Heritage Museum in Frome, Somerset, England houses a collection of local history and has a particularly important collection of artefacts from the bronze foundry of J.W.Singer.
Collections
There are two display rooms and a library, with ...
has a particular important collection of artefacts from Singer's bronze foundry and houses a rolling display of local history including a Cockey lamp and shop contents. The library and archive is open to researchers by appointment throughout the year.
Frome is served by two newspapers, the ''
Frome & Somerset Standard'' and the ''
Frome Times'', the latter now has the third largest circulation in the county. In 2008, a 'not for profit' company called Frome Community Productions was formed by members of the community in order to develop and deliver
FromeFM, an internet based community radio station. The station broadcasts 24 hours per day and is completely staffed by volunteers who produce features, interviews and music shows. In 2009,
FromeFM commenced a service to stream the broadcasts to mobile phones. In late 2011 FromeFM was granted a broadcast licence and on 16 July 2012 began broadcast on 96.6FM in the Frome area. FromeTV, was another 'non-profit' organisation running an online TV station.
Frome is home to the Frome Writers Collective – a not for profit organization. Its patron is
Barry Cunningham OBE.
Frome's Cheap Street is a location in episode six of the first series of
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
TV comedy ''