From the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales 1870-72 by John Marius Wilson:
FARRINGTON-GURNEY, a parish in Clutton district, Somerset; near the line of projected railway from Bristol to Frome, 8 miles SW of Twerton r. station, and 8½ NNE of Wells. It has a post office under Bristol. Acres, 923. Real property, £6, 294; of which £594 are in mines. Pop., 482. Houses, 113. The manor belonged formerly to the Gourneys, and belongs now to the duchy of Cornwall. The living is a vicarage, annexed to the vicarage of Stone-Easton, in the diocese of Bath and Wells. The church is good; and there is a Wesleyan chapel.
The building is Grade II listed by Historic England. The description starts “Anglican parish church. 1843-5 by John Pinch junior. Squared and coursed lias with freestone dressings, ashlar buttresses, stone tile roof to nave, C20 plain tile roofs to chancel and aisles. Nave, chancel, north and south aisles, west tower. Norman Revival style replacing earlier church. 4 bay nave with embattled billet corbel table and pilaster buttresses; single light windows with recessed arched surrounds. Chancel has tall round-headed windows with blind round-headed arcading at their bases. Aisles have nook shafts and cushion capitals to windows. . . . Late C19 stained glass throughout. Mogg family monuments in chancel: earliest, 1641 to Richard Mogg.”
A report in 1843 of the Incorporated Society for Building, Enlarging &c Churches and Chapels noted an application for funds for “enlarging, by rebuilding, the church at Farrington Gurney, Somersetshire” (Liverpool Standard Fri 20-Jan-1843 p3 and other papers). Later that year an invitation to tender was issued for the erection of a new church at Farrington Gurney with the plans and specifications being available at the offices of Messrs J and W Rees Mogg, solicitors, of Cholwell, near Farrington Gurney (Bath Chronicle Thu 18-May-1843 p2 col f). The consecration of the new church took place on 23 Dec 1844 with the Bishop of Salisbury performing the ceremony (Bristol Times and Bath Advocate Sat 28 Dec 1844 p2).
The Farrington Gurney Agricultural Society, representing the farmers of the area, as well as holding an annual ploughing match from 1847, was very involved in local politics in trying to advance their members’ interests. There were numerous press reports of a meeting of ‘Protectionist farmers and others’ held at Farrington Gurney Inn in February 1851 in which it was resolved to support in the next election ‘none but gentlemen of sound Protestant and Conservative principles, and who were determined to protect native industry’. (The Corn Law of 1815 imposed a tariff on imported corn. The Conservative party, at that time, was protectionist and against free trade. The law was repealed in 1846 causing a split in the Conservative party.)
Farrington Gurney parish was part of the benefice of ‘The Vicarage of Chewton Mendip, with the Curacies of Emborough, Farrington Gurney, and Stone Easton annexed’. It is now part of the Paulton Benefice which also includes High Littleton.
