Description: Locking Heritage and History
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This website has been produced by St Augustine's church and Locking Primary school as part of the project for the restoration of St Augustine's church tower in Locking. The project has been funded by donations, and grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and local charitable trusts. Thanks to Gillian Jones for her articles about 'Locking through the Ages', and also for encouragement from the North Somerset Heritage forum.
Locking village is in North Somerset in the West of England near Weston-super-Mare. The village is small but has a long and interesting history dating back to Roman times. The church contains a stone Norman font from 1100's, and the current church tower was built in 1380 making it nearly 640 years old. At least one of the church bells dates from that time and is among the oldest in the country still regularly rung. In 1680 Locking Manor supported the rebels and was on the losing side of the Monmouth Rebelli
Locking remained a small farming community until the 1930s when an airfield was opened on nearby Locking Moor and in 1939 a Royal Air Force training camp was built on the Northern side of Locking village. Thousands of RAF and overseas airmen were trained at RAF Locking over 60 years until the camp closed in 1999. Aircraft factories on the edge of the airfield at Oldmixon and Banwell produced aircraft during WW2 and later became a centre for the design and manufacture of helicopters. Locking's Helicopter Mus