Rodney Stoke
Somerset

The village of Rodney Stoke is to be found some three miles east of Cheddar and 4 miles west of Wells either side of the A371 nestling on the higher ground between the Mendip Hills and the Somerset Levels.  The Domesday Book recorded the village as Stoke Gifford but the manorial rights passed in marriage to the Rodney family in the 13th century.  The most famous of the Rodney dynasty was an admiral in Nelson's fleet, and the Elizabethan gatehouse to their home is to be found opposite the parish church.  


Photo: Rod Morris

Renowned for its strawberries, asparagus and soft fruit (plum trees originating in the village are widely cultivated in California) the village is very much based in farming, with more farm names than road names to be found in the telephone directory. The old "Strawberry Line" railway runs through the village but was closed under the Beeching cuts of the early 1960s.

The author Arthur Mee wrote, "nowhere else have we found the spirit of thankfulness expressed as in a lovely window here, the work of Mr. William Aikman".

The window is in the historic Parish Church of St Leonard and beneath it hangs the framed roll of honour placed there by the village in November 2007 as a mark of their enduring respect and pride. On the wall inside the Vestry is the 1920 roll of honour listing the names of the 17 men and 4 women who went to the Great War and returned. At the centre of the window is St. Leonard, the patron saint of prisoners of war (and of expectant mothers) with Jesus and Abraham together with the words in stained  glass:

All Glory be to God who in his tender mercy has brought again to their homes the men and women of Rodney Stoke who took part in the Great War 1914 - 1919.

[Image]
Photo:  Terry Brown

The handwritten, glass-framed Roll of Honour says:

IN HUMBLE GRATITUDE
FOR ALL GOD'S MERCIES DURING THE WAR
THE PARISHIONERS OF RODNEY STOKE
DEDICATED THE THANKSGIVING WINDOW
AUGUST 22ND 1920

Remembering especially God's loving care of
These, who all went from this Parish.

Allan Carver   H. Rex Simmons
Stanley T. Dudden   Harry B. Symonds
Horace J. Gardener   Herbert A. Thayer
Howard Hale   Samuel Thayer
Charlie A. W. Larcombe   Wilfred F. Thayer
Reginald E. Larcombe   Walter E. Trickey
Job J. Millard   Ethel L. Barber
Thomas Patch   Sarah Chappell
George Pattison   Dorah F. K. Coleridge Smith
William E. Perrin   Evelyn M. Coleridge Smith
Albert E. Sage       

ALSO OF THESE WHO ARE CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH US

Edwin Allen   William D. Coleridge Smith
Rodney Allen   William Symonds
Clifford Durk   John Taylor
Harold Makepeace   Charles Thayer
H. Stanley Norman   Harold Thayer
A. Victor Simmons   Frederick G. Trickey
Carl W. Simmons   Herbert R. Trickey
James N. Simmons   Evan Watkins
Percy J. Simmons   Frank Wharton
Stanley M. Simmons   Winifred Austin
William J. Simmons  

And the new (2007) version looks like this:


Photo:  Rod Morris

The people of Rodney Stoke are intensely proud of their village church and heritage and a warm welcome awaits any visitor to this idyllic Somerset Thankful Village.

Text - Rod Morris

Footnote:  In August, 2008, the signs at either end of the village were replaced with new ones mentioning the Village's Thankful status.

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