Prescot Online Readers Help Solve Somerset Mystery

By on Friday, June 28, 2013

st_matthews_field_fair_bridgwaterA mystery involving three Prescot sisters and a field in Somerset has been solved, thanks to Prescot Online readers.

Earlier this year, Prescot Online reported that Sedgemoor District Council was trying to sell off land in the Somerset town of Bridgwater. Angry residents were told only the descendants of a local property owner had the authority to intervene in the sale.

Somerset genealogist Ursula Martin was immediately on the trail of the heirs, hoping they would set the council straight and save the patch of St Matthew’s Field that had long been used for Bridgwater’s annual fair (pictured).

Ursula identified three sisters from Prescot – Lynne, Sue and Jean Rodger – as descendants of Maria Stiling, who sold the land to the council in 1929 under terms specified in a covenant.

But the trail ran cold until Prescotians were drafted to help in the search. Like eager detectives they dug up the clues that brought an end to the puzzle.

“Because of the intervention of Prescot Online, the mystery of the three Rodger sisters has been solved,” Ursula told Prescot Online. “I was finally able to contact Jean Crook, who oddly enough now lives in Bridgwater.”

They met at Jean’s home on 5 May and discussed the covenant her great grandmother left on the property, which Jean and her siblings had no knowledge of until then.

Ursula now happily reports: “Both Jean and her husband are with us and our fight against Sedgemoor District Council and the planned access road that will break the covenant laid down by Maria Stiling all those years ago.”

Photo: Gallopers at St Matthew’s Field (Phil Williams)

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