The historic market town of Chard, Somerset

This historic market town is surrounded by beautiful countryside and a wealth of lovely places to visit and is an ideal location for either a short break or longer stay in the West Country.

Now a town of 12,000 inhabitants, Chard has long been a place of some importance and is situated in the southern part of Somerset close to the borders of Devon and Dorset. As an ancient borough, it dates from the 13th Century. However, there are remains of an Iron Age settlement west of Chard and the Romans left their mark having built a villa at South Chard and constructed the military road running east from Chard, now called the Fosse Way. Chard Manor appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, having been owned by Bishop Giso of Bath, (a Frenchman from Lorraine) following the Norman conquest of 1066. 170 years later, the then owner, Bishop Jocelyn, founded a borough by a charter dated 15 January 1235.

Chard became a major cloth-making town in the Middle Ages and later, the manufacture of machine lace became the principal industry into the last century. To support this, considerable skills in light engineering developed and these have served the town well, generating a number of specialised offshoot industries that flourish to the present day. Agriculture has also been the basis of many Chard industries through the ages.

A grammar school was founded in 1671 and continues in use today in union with a range of later schools. The Monmouth rebellion passed through Chard in 1685 and the first powered flight took place in the town in 1848. A model of John Stringfellow's early steam powered aeroplane can be seen in the local museum which is opposite Ammonite Lodge. There are a number of interesting buildings in Chard, including the fine parish church of St Mary's which dates back to the 1400's and the Guildhall which was once the Corn Exchange. Today, Chard is a traditional bustling market town with a wide variety of shops and services, although employment is still very much centred on manufacturing with about a third employed in this sector.