All about Claverham  

History

Claverham is probably named after the clover fields, -which surrounded the village. In the West Country, the word 'ham' does not refer to a village or settlement, but is a contraction of the word 'hamm' meaning meadow.

It is situated roughly half way between Weston-s-Mare and Bristol on the plain between the rivers Kenn, to the north, and Yeo to the south. Claverham is roughly five miles from the Bristol Channel as the crow flies.

The village has two distinct geological sections. To the south Cadbury Hill, a limestone ridge, partly overlaid with clay, rises to some 250 feet. The rest of the area is a mixture of peat, estuarine alluvium and low hills of sand and gravel.

The former swampy areas between Hillsea, Claverham Court and Claverham Road were drained by an interconnecting series of rhynes in the 1700s.

The underlying geological structure has determined the development pattern of the village - but it is the impact of man, allied to the natural environment, which has given the surrounding countryside its distinctive and attractive patchwork of fields, hedges, walls and rhynes.