History
Archaeological and documentary evidence suggests that the site has been occupied since at least the early Iron Age. There is good evidence of Roman and Saxon villages on the site, the Saxon settlements resulting in several entries in the Domesday Book of 1086. The medieval settlement of Eckweek was excavated in 1989, and now lies under the Peasedown Bypass and Underknoll Road.
The present village of Peasedown St John is relatively modern. ‘A place known by the name of The Red Post’ was how the scattering of buildings was referred to in 1768, taking its name from the Public House. The hamlet of Carlingcott on the north east edge of Peasedown is known to have existed before 1800 but the main modern development in the area began in the 19th century when the Somerset Coalfield was greatly expanded as the Industrial Revolution increased demand for coal across England. By 1841 there was still no discernable village, except a few cottages around the Red Post and a small number of buildings along what would become the Bath Road. The sinking of the Braysdown colliery in 1845 provided extra impetus to expand the village.
By the second half of the 20th century there were at least six collieries within 3 km (1.9 mi) of Peasedown, including Braysdown, Camerton, Dunkerton, Writhlington and Shoscombe.
The rapid growth of non-conformist religion across the North-Somerset Coalfield in the later 1800s and early 1900s was evident in Peasedown St John. There was a Primitive Methodist Chapel on the Bath Road (now Peasedown Methodist Church), Wesleyan Chapels in Braysdown Lane, New Buildings and Carlingcott, a United Methodist Chapel in Carlingcott (now Carlingcott Methodist Chapel), a Baptist Chapel on Eckweek Road (now Zebedees Nursery School) and a Christadelphian Hall which still stands on Huddox Hill.
With the closure of the coal mines in the period up to the 1970s, and the growing popularity of out-of-town living, Peasedown rapidly became a commuter village for the cities of Bath and Bristol. This increased with two further phases of construction, the first in the 1950s and 1960s and the second in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Both involved the construction of what were intended as affordable family housing, the first phase being mainly in the southeast of the village and consisting mostly of terraced or semi-detached properties.
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