150 years ago - December 2nd 1871

* An inquest was held on the body of a Huish Champflower boy named Baker, aged 12, who died from scalds received when a boiler burst at the iron mines at Gupworthy, Brendon Hill.

* Mrs Matthews, wife of the vicar of Bishops Lydeard, the Rev A M Matthews, laid the foundation stone of the new schools in Bishops Lydeard.

* At a public meeting in Porlock, under the chairmanship of Mr George Rawle, it was decided that the town from the Royal Oak Inn to the parish pound and as far as Tinker’s Green be formed into a special drainage district for the purpose of the Sewage Utilisation Acts.

* Mr William Mullins Gibbs, 74, who died at Conquest House, Bishops Lydeard, former occupier of Longlands Farm, had been one of the most successful breeders and exhibitors of Devon bullocks in the West of England.

100 years ago - December 3rd 1921

* At Dulverton Petty Sessions, the Hon Aubrey Herbert presented PC Albert Culliford with the silver medal of the Canine Defence League for rescuing a dog from the old Ison iron workings.

* As Christmas Day was falling on a Sunday, Williton Board of Guardians decided that the inmates of the workhouse should have their Christmas dinner on December 26.

* Quarme Farm, Wheddon Cross, was sold at public auction for £4,500 to Mr Eric Wilton, of Instow.

* The annual distribution of blankets to the ‘second poor’ of the ecclesiastical district of St Decuman’s, Watchet, was made by the vicar the Rev Thomas Hawkes and churchwardens Messrs H Organ and Jas. Squire. There were 193 recipients.

50 years ago - December 4th 1971

* A petition was raised against plans to demolish a 400-year-old property in High Street, Dunster, to provide access to a new car park for 134 vehicles. The site earmarked was a walled garden between High Street and Priory Road.

* A Scotsman was fined £13 for firing a shotgun at a passing car in Williton. He wrote to the court that he had been ‘very, very intoxicated’ after drinking cider.

* Wiveliscombe and Wellington firemen raced to extinguish a blaze in a disused farmhouse and pigsty at White Ball, only to be told that the owners, a gravel company, had instructed an employee to burn the place down.