West Street & Methodist Church

As you come out of the church yard, to your right is the Lady Smith Memorial Institute also known as the Parish Rooms, which were built in 1902 by public sibscription in memory of Lady Smith who was a generous benfactor to the town. To day it is used for meetings, plays and other community activities.

If we walk around the side into the TSB bank car park, we can see yet another memorial on the side of the Parish Rooms building. This plaque is to three local townsmen who didn’t return home after the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685.

If we now follow the road up West Street, we will see what is now the “High Street” of Somerton. In centuries past the main commercial part of the town was located to the east of the Market Place, on Broad Street, but over time this changed to West Street, which consists of buildings of all different shapes and sizes.

The first building of note we come across is West Street Church (formerly the Methodist Church). Although the church was established in 1845, Methodism was around is Somerton for a long time before, meetings being held in local cottages for many years before a proper church was built.

Just past the Methodist Church is a rarity indeed, Leaver’s Court. This building is a half-timbered house, which is unusual for this area. The house is one of the oldest in Somerton with 15th century origins. From 1672 it was the Nag’s Head Inn

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