Horrington is a collection of three small villages (South Horrington, East Horrington and West Horrington) in the parish of

St Cuthbert Out St Cuthbert Out, sometimes Wells St Cuthbert Out, is a civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. It entirely surrounds (but does not include) the city and parish of Wells. According to the 2011 census it had a population of 3,749 ...

or east of

Wells Wells most commonly refers to: * Wells, Somerset, a cathedral city in Somerset, England * Well, an excavation or structure created in the ground * Wells (name) Wells may also refer to: Places Canada *Wells, British Columbia England * Wells ...

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. South Horrington is a relatively new village created in the late 1990s from the defunct

Mendip Hospital Mendip Hospital opened in 1848 as the Somerset and Bath Pauper Lunatic Asylum at Horrington, near Wells, in the English county of Somerset. As a county asylum, it was replaced by Tone Vale Hospital in 1897, but it continued to house long-stay e ...

that was closed in 1991. The original hospital opened on 1 March 1848 and was built to house 400 patients and staff. The principal architect was

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...

, who is better known for his designs of

St Pancras Station St Pancras railway station (), also known as London St Pancras or St Pancras International and officially since 2007 as London St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is ...

and the

Albert Memorial The Albert Memorial, directly north of the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gardens, London, was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Gothic ...

in London. His work has largely been retained and the main buildings have been converted into a range of flats and houses. Newer houses have been built on the original

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

s and orchards although the front grounds remain largely unaltered. The nearby

Maesbury Railway Cutting Maesbury Railway Cutting () is a 2 hectare geological Site of Special Scientific Interest between East Horrington and Gurney Slade in Somerset, notified in 1995. It was part of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway. This is a Geological Con ...

of the

Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway The Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, also known as the S&D, SDJR or S&DJR, was an English railway line connecting Bath (in north-east Somerset) and Bournemouth (now in south-east Dorset but then in Hampshire), with a branch from Evercreec ...

exposes approximately 135 metres of strata representing the middle and upper Lower

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 ...

Shales Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especiall ...

and the basal

Black Rock Limestone Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...

. Both formations are of early

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...

( Courceyan) age. William Catcott, born 27 Feb 1808 in West Horrington was known as the Baker Poet. He had a book of his poems called "Morning Musings" published which was about the local Mendip Hills and his family. He became a baker in Wells, Somerset and died on 13 Nov 1870. The local paper carried an obituary. Wells Cricket Club are based in South Horrington. The former church of St John at East Horrington was built in 1838 to the designs of Richard Carver.

Gallery

File:southhorrington-evening.JPG, South Horrington evening shot File:West-horrington-str.jpg, West Horrington from Hill End

References

External links

{{Commons category-inline, Horrington Villages in Mendip District