Somerset & Bristol Postal History

Some more UDCs starting with a couple of examples of the "LUXBOROUGH" udc which was issued in June 1858 under Taunton.  Both examples are from 1858.

The "MARTOCK" udc was issued in September 1847 under South Petherton.  It is known in blue from September 1849 to February 1851 in blue, with the example below currently being the only recorded example in black.

The cover below has a faint "MERRIOTT" udc in blue (indicated on the sheet below).  The udc was issued in January 1852 under Ilminster and is currently the only example recorded.  UDCs are both common and rare - whilst the handstamp shown below is the only recorded, it is likely that it would have been used at other times so it is not inherently rare - just difficult to find !

According to the British County Catalogue published in 1990, Merriott's UDC was issued on 11 December 1840 and is only known in GPO archives.

Below is an example of the UDC from March 1844.  The example is quite degraded, which would imply to me that the handstamp had had some use prior to the example below.

The two postcards below were send from Mells, near Frome, in 1912-3 and have "MELLS" single ring cancels.

Mere in Wiltshire came under towns in Somerset  (Wincanton and Bath) from 1842 until 1910 when it became a post town, coming back under Warminster in 1940.  The postcard below is from 1909 from just before it became a post town.

The postcards below from Merriott are from 1905 and 1910.  Merriott became an independant sub-office in 1900 but the cancel did change until after 1905 - the first cancel is a "MERRIOTT" single ring, the second is a "MERRIOTT S.O. / SOMERSET" ('Dulwich') double circle double-arc cancel.

The cancel below from 1963 is also a 'Dulwich' cancel but by then is "MERRIOTT / SOMERSET" as the "S.O." sub-office terminology had ben dropped.  The second cover below has a commercial commemorative cancel from 1988 for Merriott Moldings Limited.