Have you ever wondered why Frome has so many beautiful buildings ?

Frome is situated on a bed of Forest Marble, an extremely durable stone, much used in local building and is one of the reasons why the town has so many surviving buildings of interest.

Now the lovely building alongside Marks and Spencer is having finishing touches as it begins a new life, after being a pet shop, and with a lovely new sign Frome Nub News did a little digging.

When did Frome become the way it is

The Frome Conservation Area was first designated in 1973 (the boundaries were reviewed in 1976, 1986 and 2004) the Iron Gates is one of the key buildings protected.

Other buildings under that special listing are the Church of St John the Baptist and the five-arched screen (1814, by Jeffry Wyatt), Rook Lane Congregational Chapel, Court House, Argyll House and Oriel Lodge.

The Frome Conservation Area can be roughly divided into ten separate character areas each with its own characteristics defined by date or historic form and layout, and current and past uses and activities. These ten character areas are: • Character area 1: Town centre (1a) and an adjacent area to the north west including West End (1b) • Character area 2: Trinity, Sheppard's Barton and Vallis Way including Horton Street and Button Street – primarily residential area of housing with late 17thcentury origins • Character area 3: Badcox, Christchurch Street West, Christchurch Street East, Portway and Wallbridge Mill – mixed development along an east-west route south of the original town centre • Character area 4: Broadway (4a) and Vallis Road (4b) - residential areas west of the town centre • Character area 5: Willow Vale and the River Frome • Character area 6: North Parade and the environs of North Hill House • Character area 7: Welshmill Road and Innox Hill • Character area 8: Fromefield • Character area 9: Weymouth Road, Somerset Road and Victoria Park – late 19thcentury residential roads and the town's main park • Character area 10: Keyford

You can read more about the conservation areas of Frome HERE when Mendip commissioned a special survey, published in 2008, which detailed all the conservation challenges of renovating properties and developing buildings in Frome.

That's rich : Frome was always minted

In the 1720s Daniel Defoe described the town as "so prodigiously increased within these last 20-30 years, that they have built a new church, and so many new streets of houses, and those houses are so full of inhabitants, that Frome is now reckoned to have more people in it than the city of Bath, and some say, than even Salisbury itself, and if their trade continues to increase for a few years more ... it is likely to be one of the greatest and wealthiest towns in England".

Much of that wealth came from the cloth industry : In 1745 the amount of cloth produced was 1000 lengths, sent every day, off to London.

So many of the buildings were large and imposing because people could afford them.

The Iron Gates as a building became Grade II listed on July 22 1949 but it had been built in that boom time, around 1700, we know this because the first rates were paid on it in 1696 and then remodelled in the middle of the 18th century.

It was called The Court House and Iron Gates, although it never functioned as a court, but was built by Jack and William Sheppard who were both magistrates. But they were also in the cloth business, and again, became very wealthy thanks to the booming times. Their name lives on in Frome - notably with the enclosed road named Sheppards Barton. Interestingly a latter descendant of the family became, Thomas Sheppard (1766-1858) who was the third son of William is also famed for being the first Frome MP and was considered a radical.

Now the Iron Gates, developed into separate flats, is about to open its new chapter.