Talk:Somerton
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I'm not sure whether Somerton is a town or a village - as far as I know the magistrate's court building is still standing, but there have been no courts sitting in Somerton for some years - which leads me to believe that the statement in the article is incorrect.
Relatively recently (in the past few years) the Council became Somerton Town Council (as opposed to Parish Council) - I do not know what effect this has on Somerton's 'status'.
The question of the definition of town vs village is one that should be answered by an expert (i.e. a geographer); but for now here's my take on it.
In the past, we defined settlements based on how many out of a standard list of services / functions they posessed. So if it has a pub, general shop, newsagent, blacksmith, sub post office, school etc. it might be a village. This could include the magistrates' court. If it also has a local government office, market, secondary school, main post office, small hospital, wider range of shops including clothing, shoeshop, etc. it might be a town. And so on. Then in 1974 (I think) the UK underwent reform of local government, and I think after that settlements could be defined by the type of council they had: so if it had a parish council, then it was a village, if it had a town council then it was a town. More recently what were parish councils have been allowed to rename themselves as town councils and call their leaders (formerly the chairman of the council) "mayor". This is what has happened in Somerton. So to a purist it is still a village because it has only village functions, but in name it is a town.
