Churchstanton

History

The village was known as Cheristone meaning stony settlement where cherries grow, in the 13th century.

Until 1896 the village was within Hemyock Hundred in the county of Devon. It was then transferred into Somerset.

Governance

The parish council has responsibility for local issues, including setting an annual precept (local rate) to cover the council's operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the local police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters (including trees and listed buildings) and environmental issues are also the responsibility of the council.

The village falls within the Non-metropolitan district of Taunton Deane, which was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, having previously been part of Taunton Rural District. The district council is responsible for local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection and recycling, cemeteries and crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism.

Somerset County Council is responsible for running the largest and most expensive local services such as education, social services, libraries, main roads, public transport, policing and fire services, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning.

It is also part of the Taunton Deane county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election, and part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament which elects seven MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.

Geography

Quants Reserve is a nature reserve north west of the village which consists of a grassland clearing in a forestry plantation. It is well known for its butterflies — among the species which occur are Duke of Burgundy, marsh fritillary and wood white. In 1988 an area of 50.6 hectares (126.0 acres) was designated as a Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Ringdown is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest where outcrops of both Cretaceous Upper Greensand and underlying Triassic Keuper Marls occur. Amongst the vegetation present are two species which are very restricted in South West Britain, white beaksedge (Rhynchospora alba) and dioecious sedge (Carex dioica). This site is the only known location for the latter in Somerset. A colony of the small pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria selene) is found here.

Religious sites

The parish Church of St Peter and St Paul dates from the 14th century and has been designated as a grade I listed building.

Communication

The village is served by an infrequent bus service (routes 387 and 98) and a Somerset County Council sponsored service for older children to attend colleges (Richard Huish and SCAT) in Taunton.

A daily bus service is provided by Somerset County Council to take secondary pupils to The Castle School in Taunton.

The majority of the village is provided with telephone services through the Churchstanton telephone exchange. ADSL broadband is available to the majority of the village with speeds quoted by British Telecom as up to 7 Mbit/s. in late 2016 two companies (BT and Gigaclear) are in contention to provide fibre broadband to the village. As of November 2016 BT had started to install a FTTP network and Gigaclear was trying to gather enough interested customers to make their FTTP commercially viable.