From Domesday to the present 

Although there is evidence of earlier Roman and Saxon settlements, the recorded history Charlton Musgrove - as with much of English history - begins with the Domesday Book of 1086. At that time, the tenant-in-chief of the manor of Charlton, or Cerletone as it was then spelled, was Robert Fitz (or son of) Gerold on behalf of the Crown. 

The lord of the Charlton manor at the time of Domesday - the terre-tenant, who paid taxes to the tenant-in-chief - was the de Rivers family. Although little is heard of them, the family seems to have held the manor for the next 100 years, for in the late-12th century, Walter de Rivers granted or sold to Robert de Muscegros (Musgrove) "the land where the church is". This is presumably the land around the high ground upon which St Stephen's church now stands. In subsequent years, Robert acquired more land and by 1237 he was the occupier of the whole manor, the bounds of which defined - and which still largely define - the area of our parish today. This included an estate at Holbrook which at the time was detached from the main part of the manor.

Descendants of the de Musgrove family owned the Charlton manor and several neighbouring estates for over three hundred years. Through various marriages they climbed the ranks of the nobility. In due course, the de Muscegros family estates were inherited by Robert's great, great granddaughter, Hawise, who in 1300 married John de Ferrers, 1st Baron Ferrers of Chartley, a son of the Earl of Derby. By this marriage, the Ferrers became preeminent landowners around Wincanton. The last of the de Musgrove line to own what was by then known as Charlton Musgrove manor, was Walter Devereux, the 10th Baron Ferrers. He was an accomplished and loyal soldier who subsequently became the first Viscount Hereford, elevated by Henry VIII in 1550. 

In 1540, Devereux had sold the manor, together with the Norton Ferris manor and hundred, which he also possessed, to William Stourton, the 7th Baron Stourton, whose family seat was at Stourhead. At the same time, Stourton also bought land in Barrow as well as the grange at Roundhill, both previously owned by Stavordale Priory, the Augustinian monastery dissolved by Thomas Cromwell the previous year. 

The ownership of the Charlton Musgrove manor - and the Stavordale lands - changed hands many times over the following century, sometimes in dramatic fashion. In 1557, William Stourton's son and heir, Charles, the 8th Baron Stourton, was convicted of the gruesome double murder of William Hartgill (previously the MP for Westbury) and his son, John, neighbours with whom he was feuding.  Stourton - who was also Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, Somerset and Dorset - lured the unfortunate pair to Kilmington church where he kidnapped them and then arranged their murder in the cellar of the old manor house at Stourhead. For this crime he was attainted and hanged at Salisbury on 16 March 1557, together with four of his servants who had carried out the grisly deed.

Under Stourton's attainder, the ownership of the Charlton Musgrove manor passed to the Crown (Mary I). Some of the confiscated land was quickly distributed. For example, John Dyer, whose family held a lease on Roundhill, acquired the Stavordale land as well as ownership of Roundhill.  Fifty years later this land was described as the Barrow Lane manor.

As an aside, John Dyer's younger brother, James (later Sir James) Dyer, who was born at Roundhill, was a prominent Tudor politician and jurist who served as Speaker of the House of Commons and later as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He is credited with introducing the concept of precedence into the English legal system.

In 1599, the residue of the Charlton manor was acquired by Sir John Glanville, a justice of the Queen's Bench. The Glanville family owned the manor for three generations until 1661 when it was inherited by six sisters. The sisters proceeded to sell the land, largely to the tenants of the manor. Two of the purchasers were The Reverend Thomas Leir, who had been appointed rector of Charlton Musgrove in 1660, and his brother William. Their father had been rector since 1617.

Along with land and 11 cottages, the Leir brothers also bought the advowsen, the ancient right to nominate each new rector. As was doubtless their hope, successive members of the Leir family or their trustees used this power to name their relatives for the rectorate continuously, with fathers passing the living to their sons or nephews. Indeed, members of the Leir family held the living for almost 300 years from 1617 until 1914 and treated the rectory as their own. By 1914, the Leir family had built an estate of almost 1,000 acres in Charlton Musgrove and Wincanton.  Although their estate was broken up and the land was sold in 1914, the family retained the advowsen until the death of R. B. M. Leir in 1976 when it finally passed to the bishop of Bath and Wells. 

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At the time of Domesday, the manor comprised 29 households, putting it into the top 40% of English settlements. Four of the households were headed by "villagers" (the most prosperous of the peasantry),  15 by "smallholders" (ranked slightly below a villager), 3 by "cottagers" (in possession of a cottage and garden) and 7 by serfs (who were without resources of their own).  Domesday assessed, for taxation purposes, that in 1086 the annual value of the manor to the lord was £6.

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