A village through time — from John Rocque's 1738 survey to the present day
Wrington has been many villages. The one John Rocque surveyed for William Pulteney in 1738; the one of orchards, quarries and Sunday bells; the one the twentieth century filled in field by field; and the one we live in today. This holds them all at once — every building I could find a record of, rising from the ground in the year it was built, on the real hills, beneath a moving sky.
I made it because a place is easiest to love when you can watch it move. Stay a while and the village keeps teaching the oldest lesson there is: nothing here has ever stood still, and the one thing you can count on is that it will change again.
So wander. Drag to look around, let the years run, and find the corner you know best — then tell us what Wrington should become next.
Wrington — A Village Through Time. Created by Aeolus, 2026.
In memory of Richard Thorn MBE (d. 2025), who built and tended Wrington's village website for twenty-five years and gathered the memories this project grew from — its inspiration, and its dedication.
Terrain & building heights — Environment Agency LiDAR (Open Government Licence).
Listed buildings — Historic England, National Heritage List for England (OGL).
Planning applications — PlanIt (planit.org.uk), aggregating North Somerset's open register; conservation area — planning.data.gov.uk (OGL).
Construction dates — Energy Performance Certificates, MHCLG (OGL).
Photographs
Historic village photographs are credited to their sources — "Wrington Thru the Lens" (John Rubidge, wrington.info) and wringtonvillage.com, where they were gathered.
Richard Thorn (2007) — from wringtonvillage.com.
Additional images — Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain / CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA).
This is a non-commercial village history. Material is credited to its sources; beyond the openly-licensed images above, no ownership or permission is claimed. If you hold rights to anything here, or it concerns you, please ask and it will be removed promptly.
Memories & history
Village memories drawn from the Wrington community guestbook and the archive of wringtonsomerset.org.uk, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
Historical events compiled from village records and local history.