North Petherton: Churches
A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes).

North Petherton church was probably a minster of royal foundation. Chedzoy, Pawlett, and probably St. Michaelchurch were in origin dependent upon it. (fn. 1) Peter, the king’s clerk, afterwards bishop of Chester, held the church in 1066, and his nephew Ranulph succeeded to the income from the church on Peter’s death c. 1084. (fn. 2) King Stephen gave a church that was either North or South Petherton to Wells cathedral, (fn. 3) but William of Erleigh included the church in his foundation grant to Buckland priory. (fn. 4) Vicars seem to have been appointed before 1186, and a vicarage was endowed probably by the end of the century. (fn. 5)

A second chantry in the parish church may have been dedicated to All Souls and seems to have been established by Buckland priory in memory of Henry of Erleigh (d. 1272).

The chapel at North Newton was granted in 1186 with the mother church of North Petherton to Buckland priory by William of Erleigh. (fn. 85)

A P Baggs and M C Siraut, ‘North Petherton: Churches’, in A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes), ed. R W Dunning and C R Elrington (London, 1992), pp. 308-312. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/som/vol6/pp308-312 [accessed 23 May 2023].