PETHERTON (SOUTH), a market-town and parish in the southern division of the hundred of PETHERTON, county of SOMERSET, 5g miles (N. by W.) from Crewkerne, and 130 (W.S.W.) from London, containing 2090 inhabitants. This town is ancient, and derives its name from the river Peder, or Parret, which passes it on the east, over which, on the old Roman Fosseway, is a stone bridge of three arches; it was formerly of wood, but rebuilt in its present state by the parents of two children who were drowned in the river, and whose effigies are placed upon it to commemorate the event. It comprises three principal streets, which, by uniting, form a triangle. A few of the inhabitants are engaged in the manufacture of dowlas and sail-cloth; and on the river are several corn-mills. The markets, formerly considerable, but now on the decline, are on Thursday and Saturday; and a fair, principally for lambs, is held on the 6th of July. Courts leet for the manor and hundred are held annually in October. The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Taunton, and diocese of Bath and Wells, rated in the king's books at £24, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Bristol. The church, which is dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is a spacious cruciform edifice, with an octangular tower surmounted by a spire. There are two places of worship for Independents, and one each for Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. The free school was founded, about 1732, by William Glandfield, who bequeathed £60, augmented, in 1739, by Mary Prowse, who bequeathed £ 100, and by a further bequest from Thomas Musgrave, commuted for £ 100 in the four per cents., for educating and clothing poor children: twenty boys are instructed, and occasionally clothed by subscription; the salary of the master is £30 per annum. In 1/20, a large earthen vessel, full of Roman coins, was dug up in a field near the bridge; and other Roman antiquities have at different times been discovered in the vicinity. .