The place-name 'Wool' is first attested in Anglo-Saxon Writs from 1002 to 1012, where it appears as Wyllon. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it appears as Wille and Welle, and as Welles in 1212 in the Book of Fees. The name means 'springs' in the sense of the related word wells.[2]
According to local knowledge, only one building was destroyed during World War II, on 3 May 1941. The building was a small bungalow by the name of "Two Birches", located on Bailey's Drove. The house was later rebuilt.[citation needed]
A small single-lane hump-backed stone bridge, a Grade II* listed structure about 200m north from the railway station, is no longer used for vehicular traffic. The place name Wullebrigg, recorded in 1244, indicates a crossing here in the thirteenth century and there is an extant record from 1343 of a bridge crossing the River Frome at this point. It has a stone half-way along it stating that those who deface or damage the bridge will be transported (sent to Australia or another penal colony) for the rest of their lives. In January 2018 one of the bridge's stone parapets collapsed, undermined by floodwater, but the arches remained undamaged.[3][4]
The village received significant media coverage in January 2012, after a fuel tanker crashed into the front of a bungalow, starting a fire. No-one was injured in the incident, but the tanker driver was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.[5] It received further media coverage in November 2018, when animal rights group PETA requested that the village be renamed Vegan Wool, claiming that the village's name "promotes hideous animal cruelty", despite its true origins. The county council agreed to debate the issue.[6] In December 2018, the council appeared to mock PETA on Twitter after repairs were carried out on Wool Bridge following erosion, tweeting, "Look away veggie lovers, #Wool bridge is now looking meaty".[7][8]
