Somerton is a

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 authority ...

in the Babergh district of

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Somerton is split into two smaller villages: Upper Somerton with a population of approximately 50 and Somerton with a population of about 20. Upper Somerton is at the top of one valley and has St. Margaret's Church, a phone box and post box. Somerton is at the bottom of the same valley and has only a post box. The villages comprise rural houses and farms with some council houses. Its nearest villages are

Hartest Hartest is a small village and civil parish in the Babergh district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located halfway between Bury St. Edmunds and Sudbury on the B1066 road in the Glem valley. Brockley is two miles north. The villag ...

Brockley Brockley is a district and an wards of the United Kingdom, electoral ward of south London, England, in the London Borough of Lewisham south-east of Charing Cross. History The name Brockley is derived from "Broca's woodland clearing", a wood ...

and

Hawkedon Hawkedon is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around south-south-west of Bury St Edmunds, the parish also contains the hamlet of Thurston End, and in 2005 had a population of 120. Th ...

. There was once quite the rivalry between Hartest and Somerton, and a giant stone found in Somerton was stolen by Hartest and rolled down the valley where it still sits on their village green. The nearest town is

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...

or Sudbury.

Notable residents

* Elsie Few (1909-1980), artist. * Claude Rogers (1907-1979), painter, art teacher, a founding member of the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

and President of the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

of British artists.

References

External links

Villages in Suffolk Babergh District Civil parishes in Suffolk {{Suffolk-geo-stub