Wedmore near Wells, Somerset (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, March 17, 2013, 15:09 (4271 days ago) @ Roger Griffiths

Hi Roger,
yes Wedmore looks lovely & no disrespect at all but clearly not a former "hotbed" of life, no particularly famous people, industries, etc etc that I can see. I'm surprised to see it's only a few miles from Wells - a place I've visited many times as headoffice site of a former engineering employer of mine - yet I've never heard of it.

"WEDMORE, a parish in the hundred of Bempstone, county Somerset, 8 miles from Wells, 6 S.E. of Axbridge, and 4 from Shapwick railway station. It is situated on the turnpike road from Highbridge to Wells. The parish, which is divided from the hundred of Wells by the river Axe, and bounded on the S. by the Brue, contains the tythings of Wedmore, the Borough, Churchland, Blackford, and Northload. Its name is said to have been originally Wet-Moor, owing to its having been under water nine months in the year; but within the present century it has been extensively drained. Wedmore is a polling place for the county elections, and an ancient borough governed by a portreeve chosen yearly at the manorial court, with water bailiffs, constables, and other officers. A court leet is held annually."
From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)

http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SOM/Wedmore/index.html
http://www.wedmore.org.uk/wedmorevillage.htm

So I wonder if the reason it came up on the searches I did was maybe it happens to be fortunate in having large sets of PRs on the LDS database, whereas other Gloucestershire towns do not ?. From the above - "Wedmore is a polling place for the county elections, and an ancient borough"
Perhaps it's prominence is linked to it's closeness to Wells, small & quiet yet the home of a beautiful Cathedral and so the Bishops & their Registers ? Or maybe it's just that the Hawkins name that I was researching is particularly prominent there, like the Doones of Devon ?
Ah well.

Anyhow, sorry for drifting away from the original query from Rookancestrybest, if anyone else can please help with that, please ??? Thanks.