About Frome
Frome is a medium-sized town and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset. The town is approximately 13 miles south of Bath, and located at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills. The centre of the town, through which the River Frome runs, is surrounded by hills.
From AD 950 to 1650, Frome was larger than Bath and originally grew due to the wool and cloth industry. It later diversified into metal-working and printing.
The town has grown substantially in recent years but still retains a very large number of listed buildings, and most of the centre falls within a conservation area. Although it is a separate parish the town now includes most of Selwood as a suburb.
The metal-working and printing industries which replaced wool as Frome's main industry have declined but not left the town. Almost half of the economically active population of Frome commute to work outside the town in Bath, Bristol, Warminster, Westbury or further afield.
There is almost no evidence for prehistoric or Roman settlement of the area. A monastery built by St. Aldhelm in 685 is the earliest evidence of Saxon occupation of Frome (Froome). The Saxon kings appear to have used Frome as a base from which to hunt in Selwood Forest and in 934 a witenagemot was held there, indicating that Frome must already have been a place of some size.
At the time of the Domesday Survey the manor was owned by King William, and was the principal settlement of the largest and wealthiest hundred in Somerset. Over the following years parts of the original manor were separated off as distinct manors, for example one was owned by the minster, later passing to the Abbey at Cirencester, which others were leased by the Crown to important families. By the 13th century, the Abbey had bought up some of the other manors (although it did let them out again) and was exploiting the profits from market and trade in the town.
Information & text gathered from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved September 1st, 2021, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frome