Hinton Blewett is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, north of Wells and south of Bristol on the northern slope of the Mendip Hills, within the designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and in the Chew Valley near the source of the River Chew. The parish has a population of 308. History An estate called Hantone is recorded in the Somerset section of Domesday Book (1086), and it was in existence as a recognised, bounded and named territorial entity before, and perhaps well before the Norman Conquest. Absolutely nothing is yet known about the nature, location or extent of any early medieval settlement at Hinton. However, with an assessment of 8 hides in the late 11th century, it was clearly a significant place, and is likely to have sustained a moderate population. Using a multiplier of five for each of the individuals recorded by Domesday, the total population at that time is likely to have been in the region of 90 people. The form of their settlement before 1066, is likely to have been a mixture of dispersed, individual farmsteads, and perhaps the beginnings of a more nucleated occupation site. It would certainly have looked nothing like the settlement morphology that we see in later maps. The Blewett part of the name is a manorial affix, deriving from the Bluet family. It is recorded before the middle of the thirteenth century. The best explanation for the toponym Hinton is that it derives from Old English hēan (a dative form of the word hēah) and tūn. The second element of this name is the single commonest place-name forming word and it has an extremely wide variety of meanings, but it stems from an ancient root word with connotations of enclosure. In most cases, settlement, estate, farmstead are probably the most notable meanings. The first element has a meaning of 'high, elevated', and topographically, this perfectly describes the situation of the present settlement. Hinton lies towards the western end of a ridge of high ground the highest point of which attains a value of 156m aOD. The parish was part of the hundred of Chewton. The name of the village is sometimes spelled as Hinton Blewitt. There is a village green outside the pub and church, sometimes known as the "Barbary". William Rees-Mogg took the title of Baron Rees-Mogg, of Hinton Blewett, when he was made a life peer