Compton

A common place name this has two basic explanations; one is “the valley of the fields”, while the other, and more usual derivation, is a “tun” in a “cumb”, that is a farm or homestead in a valley.

There are literally dozens of Comptons scattered around the country, many of them with a personal name attached, as in Compton Abbas, Compton Valence, Compton Pauncefoot and Compton Verney.

From the late thirteenth through to the beginning of the twentieth century the local Compton here was generally known as Compton Gifford, indeed many still refer to it that way. The Gifford in question being Osbern Giffard who then held what Worth reckoned was probably the “most important Doomsday manor within the Three Towns”.

Unlike so many of the other local manors though this one was not significantly developed until the dawn of the nineteenth century.