the Local Government Act 1972, having previously been part of Shepton Mallet Rural District, which is responsible for local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection and recycling, cemeteries and crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism. Ashwick is art of the electoral ward called Ashwick, Chilcompton and Stratton. At the 2011 Census the population of this ward was 4,835. Somerset County Council is responsible for running the largest and most expensive local services such as education, social services, libraries, main roads, public transport, policing and fire services, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning. It is also part of the Wells county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Prior to Brexit in 2020, it was in the South West England constituency of the European Parliament. Church The parish Church of St James is a Victorian Gothic building erected between 1876 and 1881 by Browne and Gill of Bath. However, the church tower dates back to 1463. It is a Grade I listed building. The earliest record of a church on the site is 1413, when Bishop Bubwith dedicated a churchyard at Ashwick and authorised burials to take place there, but it is not known when the church was first built. The church was originally a chapel of ease connected to the vicarage at Kilmersdon, near Radstock. It remained so until the formation of Ashwick parish. The benefice of Oakhill was added in 1923 and Binegar was added in 1969, since when one rector has overseen all three villages. At the west end of the aisles in the Church of St James two memorial tablets can be seen. These are dedicated to John Billingsley, his wife Mary, and their family. The writer of the 1794 Survey of Somerset, Billingsley was a leading agriculturalist who was one of the founders of the Bath and West Society, known today as the Royal Bath and West of England Society. He lived all his life at Ashwick Grove, which is in the nearby village of Oakhill. References External links Villages in Mendip District Civil parishes in Somerset