History
The Once and Future Camelot?
Records of what was originally called East Camel go back to the 11th century but there are links with a far older, legendary past. Cadbury Castle or Cadbury Camp in the neighbouring parish of South Cadbury is a large, Iron Age fort known also as Camelot and associated by many with King Arthur.
The Tudor antiquarian John Leland located Camlann (the site of King Arthur’s last stand) in Queen Camel, and many modern scholars agree that the place-name Camel is Celtic in origin. It may be derived from cantmael or “bare ridge”, possibly referring to Camel Hill which dominates both Queen Camel and West Camel.
Records of what was originally called East Camel go back to the 11th century but there are links with a far older, legendary past. Cadbury Castle or Cadbury Camp in the neighbouring parish of South Cadbury is a large, Iron Age fort known also as Camelot and associated by many with King Arthur.
The Tudor antiquarian John Leland located Camlann (the site of King Arthur’s last stand) in Queen Camel, and many modern scholars agree that the place-name Camel is Celtic in origin. It may be derived from cantmael or “bare ridge”, possibly referring to Camel Hill which dominates both Queen Camel and West Camel.
Kings & Queens
1066 and all that ...
In the 11th century around 200 people lived in East Camel. It belonged to the most powerful man in England, Earl Godwin, who gave it as dower to his wife Countess Gytha. She was supposedly in Camel when she received the news that her son Harold Godwinson (King Harold II) had been killed at the Battle of Hastings.
William the Conqueror confiscated East Camel along with the rest of the Godwin estates and by 1275 it was known as Camel Regis or King’s Camel. The manor was granted out from time to time, for example to the bastard son of Henry I, but on each occasion it reverted to the Crown. One member of the de Burgh family was only persuaded to surrender it (and other manors) to the crown in exchange for the tenancies of Colchester Castle and the Tower of London. Camel was especially favoured by successive Queens Consort: King John’s first wife (Isabella of Gloucester) settled here after her marriage was annulled and the widow of Henry III (Eleanor of Provence) established a deer park around Hazlegrove.
Her son Edward I went on to give Camel as dower to his (second) wife Margaret, another Provençale, and this practice was followed by subsequent monarchs. Unsurprisingly the village came to be known as Queen’s Camel.
William the Conqueror confiscated East Camel along with the rest of the Godwin estates and by 1275 it was known as Camel Regis or King’s Camel. The manor was granted out from time to time, for example to the bastard son of Henry I, but on each occasion it reverted to the Crown. One member of the de Burgh family was only persuaded to surrender it (and other manors) to the crown in exchange for the tenancies of Colchester Castle and the Tower of London. Camel was especially favoured by successive Queens Consort: King John’s first wife (Isabella of Gloucester) settled here after her marriage was annulled and the widow of Henry III (Eleanor of Provence) established a deer park around Hazlegrove.
Her son Edward I went on to give Camel as dower to his (second) wife Margaret, another Provençale, and this practice was followed by subsequent monarchs. Unsurprisingly the village came to be known as Queen’s Camel.
MEDIEVAL and TUDOR CAMEL
Down on the Farm
The Domesday survey reckoned the parish had around 1800 acres (15 hides) of cultivated land together with 100 acres each of river meadow, dry pasture and woodland. The large, open fields were cultivated in family strips and a third of the land was farmed by the manor. Produce in medieval times included wheat, oats, barley, beef cattle, dairy cattle, milk, cheese, butter, sheep, wool, pigs, honey, withy, apples, pears, plums, crab apples, cucumbers, onions, garlic, vetches and flowers. There was a mill in Queen Camel and another in the hamlet of Wales, so called after its two wells whose sulphurous medicinal waters were at one time greatly valued.
Wales also had a fulling mill and dyehouse.
The Domesday survey reckoned the parish had around 1800 acres (15 hides) of cultivated land together with 100 acres each of river meadow, dry pasture and woodland. The large, open fields were cultivated in family strips and a third of the land was farmed by the manor. Produce in medieval times included wheat, oats, barley, beef cattle, dairy cattle, milk, cheese, butter, sheep, wool, pigs, honey, withy, apples, pears, plums, crab apples, cucumbers, onions, garlic, vetches and flowers. There was a mill in Queen Camel and another in the hamlet of Wales, so called after its two wells whose sulphurous medicinal waters were at one time greatly valued.
Wales also had a fulling mill and dyehouse.
Church ...
The secular and spiritual lives of medieval villagers were bounded by the manor and the church and in Queen Camel the buildings which symbolised and incorporated these earthly and heavenly powers were situated next to each other, near the bridge on the south bank of the river. The Church of St Barnabas was built in the 14th century by the Cistercians of Cleeve Abbey: it still dominates the village and its peal of six bells is the heaviest in the world. The church’s size and grandeur bear witness to the wealth of the village which had around 500 inhabitants by the 16th century.
... and Manor
Around this time wealthier parishioners began to enclose land: the manor park (to the east of the church) was ‘disparked’, divided and let out to individual tenants, and the former hunting park at Hazlegrove was given over to grazing. In 1558 the distinguished royal servant and landowner Sir Walter Mildmay bought Queen Camel from the crown and moved the manor out of the village and built a fine new manor house up at Hazlegrove.
The parish continued to prosper nonetheless and by the end of the 16th century there were around 700 adults in 180 households, almost half of whom employed servants - who themselves comprised over one third of the adult population. Most of the farms were small but one family held c.300 acres and a quarry, stone from which was used in 1602 to surface the London to Exeter road (northern route) which passed along the ridge of Camel Hill.
The parish continued to prosper nonetheless and by the end of the 16th century there were around 700 adults in 180 households, almost half of whom employed servants - who themselves comprised over one third of the adult population. Most of the farms were small but one family held c.300 acres and a quarry, stone from which was used in 1602 to surface the London to Exeter road (northern route) which passed along the ridge of Camel Hill.
Another family owned both of the mills in the parish. Wool and the textile trade were at the heart of Queen Camel’s economy: many households spun linen and the parish was home to two fullers, two felt- makers, four weavers and a clothier.
EARLY MODERN TIMES
Law and Disorder
The men of Queen Camel had something of a reputation, not least in nearby Dorset. Six of them were caught stealing nineteen cartloads of wheat from Sandford Orcas, and the Churchwardens of Sherborne paid a watchman four shillings “to keepe out Cammell men”. They had been criticised in the past for their carelessness with fires and it is just possible that on 10th June 1639 early and over-enthusiastic celebration of the following day’s Feast of St Barnabas (the patron saint of Queen Camel) had made them even more careless. At any event a great fire destroyed or damaged over 70 houses belonging mainly to poorer parishioners in the north of the village. Gypsies were blamed.
However Queen Camel was back in business within seven years when 70 trestle tables were put aside for the annual Fair which attracted custom from parts of Dorset and Devon as well as Somerset. In 1649 Puritan Justices complained that God was “much dishonoured by drunkenness” in Queen Camel’s unlicensed alehouses; by 1684 there were six licenced Public Houses in the village. It sounds more like a small town, and indeed this is how Queen Camel was represented in county maps at the time, but eventually it was eclipsed by Castle Cary.
In the surrounding countryside enclosure continued remorselessly and there were frequent disputes between farmers, the vicar and the manor over grazing rights, the enclosure of commons and the payment of tithes and rent.
The men of Queen Camel had something of a reputation, not least in nearby Dorset. Six of them were caught stealing nineteen cartloads of wheat from Sandford Orcas, and the Churchwardens of Sherborne paid a watchman four shillings “to keepe out Cammell men”. They had been criticised in the past for their carelessness with fires and it is just possible that on 10th June 1639 early and over-enthusiastic celebration of the following day’s Feast of St Barnabas (the patron saint of Queen Camel) had made them even more careless. At any event a great fire destroyed or damaged over 70 houses belonging mainly to poorer parishioners in the north of the village. Gypsies were blamed.
However Queen Camel was back in business within seven years when 70 trestle tables were put aside for the annual Fair which attracted custom from parts of Dorset and Devon as well as Somerset. In 1649 Puritan Justices complained that God was “much dishonoured by drunkenness” in Queen Camel’s unlicensed alehouses; by 1684 there were six licenced Public Houses in the village. It sounds more like a small town, and indeed this is how Queen Camel was represented in county maps at the time, but eventually it was eclipsed by Castle Cary.
In the surrounding countryside enclosure continued remorselessly and there were frequent disputes between farmers, the vicar and the manor over grazing rights, the enclosure of commons and the payment of tithes and rent.
In the 1730s the Mildmays rebuilt Hazlegrove House as a Georgian mansion and by 1800 almost all the land in the parish had been enclosed.
Into the Modern World
Boom ...
By the 19th century more than half of the people of Queen Camel were employed outside agriculture. Several worked in the quarries on Camel Hill, mainly extracting stone for road repair. Wales Mill was converted into a textile factory which at one time was said to employ some 400 people, many of them presumably from other parishes. A tannery was built in Queen Camel and up to 65 girls were employed as glovers. A seminary for young ladies was established in the village and also a school for butter-makers, possibly associated with the weekly butter market.
There were two or three small day schools in the village and by 1861 the Church school had 100 pupils; Carew Hervey Mildmay built a handsome new schoolhouse for them in 1872. There had been a doctor in the village since the mid-18th century. A Post Office was established in 1828 and was later combined with a grocery and drapery business.
In the meantime agricultural holdings were being further consolidated: by 1840 the Hazlegrove estate was over 3200 acres, more than half of it within Queen Camel parish. On the poorer soil in the northern part of the parish there were three large farms mainly comprising pasture and parkland. South of the river there were around a dozen smaller farms, half of them based in the village, with pockets of arable land, pasture and meadow land scattered here and there. Almost a hundred men of the village were employed as farm labourers. Most of the land was down to grass, mainly for dairy, and farmers invested heavily in milking parlours and other farm buildings, drainage and other improvements.
…and Bust!
The population of Queen Camel reached 772 in 1851 but like other parts of rural England the parish was severely affected by the long agricultural depression in the later part of the 19th century. The textile mill and tannery were closed down and by the early decades of the 20th century the population had fallen to around 400. Many of the larger farms were broken up and the Hazlegrove estate was sold in the 1920s.
A New World
Since the 2nd World War things have been looking up. Thanks to excellent transport links many residents have been able to find employment within commuting distance and the population has doubled in the last sixty years. The people of Queen Camel are in the happy position of being able to look back with pride on almost a thousand years of recorded history while looking forward to the future with confidence.
Most of the information in these notes comes from two books, namely Queen Camel: Our Royal Heritage (1983) by the late Gordon Moore (currently out of print (March 2012 - looking into getting new edition printed) and Victoria County History (Somerset, Vol.XI, forthcoming). Click on following link to open a new page: http://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/counties/somerset/work-in-progress/queen-camel.
The compiler wishes to express his indebtedness and gratitude to both, and to apologise for any mistakes, misunderstandings or misinterpretations. There is also a wealth of historical material in two books which are currently out of print, viz. Queen Camel Now & Then (1990) by Ken Bryant and the late Roger Giles, a fascinating photographic and textual record of the last hundred years, and A History of Hazlegrove House in the parish of Queen Camel, Somerset by R.P.A. Lankester (1938).
For these and other books on Queen Camel check the Somerset Library catalogue at https://www.librarieswest.org.uk/client/en_GB/default
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