Over Stowey
| Over Stowey | |
| Somerset | |
|---|---|
 Church of St Peter and St Paul | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST194398 |
| Location: | 51°9’7"N, 3°9’14"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 352 (2011) |
| Post town: | Bridgwater |
| Postcode: | TA5 |
| Dialling code: | 01278 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Somerset |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Bridgwater |
Over Stowey is a small village in Somerset. A large part of the forest and open heath of the Quantock Hills is within the parish and it includes such hamlets as Plainsfield, Aley, Adscombe, Friarn and Bincombe, all in the Cannington Hundred.
The village is adjacent to Nether Stowey, eight miles north-west of Bridgwater.[1]
History
Nearby is Dowsborough Camp (or Danesborough or Dawesbury), an Iron Age hill fort. Another Iron Age site at Plainsfield Camp may have been an enclosure for animals rather than a defended settlement.
It is possible that a Roman road ran from here to the Quantocks, because the names Nether Stowey and Over Stowey come from the Old English stan weg, meaning 'stone way'.[2][3]
By the 12th century the parish had both a church and the 'old castle precinct' on the Stowey 'herpath'. The castle may have been the caput of the estate of Alfred d'Epaignes at Stowey. It survives as a large, flat mound to the north of Over Stowey village.[4]
The village was the site of six fulling mills and was a site for copper mining.[3]
Plainsfield was a centre for weaving and pottery, the manor having been held by the family of Admiral Robert Blake from around 1600.[3]
In the 1830s three-quarters of the land of the parish was bought by Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton who built Quantock Lodge as his home which later became a school.
Church
William Holland kept a diary of his life as the vicar of the Church of St Peter and St Paul in the village from 1799 to 1818.[5] The first recorded incumbent was in 1144. The 14th or 15th-century tower was largely rebuilt by Richard Carver in 1840. It is a Grade II* listed building.[6]
There was a 13th-century chapel of the Virgin Mary built at Adscome by the monks of Athelney Abbey who had an estate there - Adscombe Chapel.[3]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Over Stowey) |
- Over Stowey
- Over Stowey Parish Council
- Over Stowey in the Domesday Book
- Over Stowey in the Domesday Book
References
- ↑ "Over Stowey". Quontock Online. http://www.quantockonline.co.uk/quantocks/villages/overstowey/overstowey1.html.
- ↑ Dumnonia and the Valley of the Parret, Rev. W.H.P. Greswell (1922)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Bush, Robin (1994). Somerset: The complete guide. Wimborne: The Dovecote Press Ltd. pp. 166–167. ISBN 1-874336-26-1. https://archive.org/details/somersetcomplete0000bush/page/166.
- ↑ A History of the County of Somerset - Volume : (Victoria County History)[1]
- ↑ "Paupers and Pig Killers: The Diary of William Holland 1799-1818" (1984) edited by Jack Ayres
- ↑ National Heritage List 1060177: Church of St Peter and St Paul (Grade II* listing)