Facts & Figures

Name:	Priston
Meaning:	Farmstead near the brushwood or copse (A Dictionary of English Place-names OUP 1998)
Population	252 (Census 2001) - increased from 250 (Census 1991)
Priston People	(from 2001 Census) 252 inhabitants: 133 (male), 119 (female) age profile: 46 persons (< 16 years old), 26 persons (>65 years old) country of birth: 230 (England), 3 (Scotland), 10 (Wales), 10 (other) employment: 11 (agriculture & related) stated religion: 175 (Christian), 52 (None), 25 (Not stated) houses: 79 (owned), 20 (rented) travel to work: 29 (work at home), 3 (rail), 8 (bus), 98 (car/van), 3 (walk) Source: National Statistics website: www.statistics.gov.uk Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO
Latitude:	51 degrees 20 minutes North
Longitude:	2 degrees 26 minutes West
OS Grid Reference:	36951605 or ST695605
Area:	750 hectares, or 1850 acres approximately
Height above sea level:	90 metres or 300 feet approx.
Traditions:	newly-weds throwing money for children at the churchyard gate May Day fête hymn-singing from Priston Church tower on Ascension day Village Social Santa Claus and candle-lit Village Carol singing procession annual plastic duck race along Priston Brook
Oldest living inhabitant:	The yew tree in Priston church yard?
Literary references:	"Priston. Nature has made it lovely and man has made it irresistible." (The Kings England - Somerset, Arthur Mee, Hodder & Stoughton 1941) "I drove to Priston [Rectory] to dine with Mr. Hammond . . . and had an entertainment better suited to Grovesnor Square than a clergyman's home - French dishes and French wines in profusion. I hope such feasts will not be repeated often, or I am sure I shall not be one of the guests." (Journal of a Somerset Rector, John Skinner, 1823) "These fifty square miles or so of Somerset, bounded by the red-brick villages of Clutton in the west and Combe Hay in the east, Priston in the north and Kilmersdon in the south, lie on top of a score of complex, broken,twisted and contorted seams of coal, which until as late as the 1970s were worked by as independent and militant band of English mining men as might ever have stepped out from beneath the winding-gears of the coalfields of Durham or Lanark." (The Map That Changed The World, Simon Winchester, 2001)
Other Priston's on the Web	The Priston Tale is a Full-3D MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) based on the players’ adventures in the continent of Priston.