History
Banwell Camp, east of the village, is a univallate hillfort which has yielded flint implements from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. It was also occupied in the Iron Age. In the late 1950s it was excavated by J.W. Hunt of the Banwell Society of Archaeology. It is surrounded by a 4 metres (13 ft) high bank and ditch.
The parish was part of the Winterstoke Hundred.
Banwell Abbey was built as a bishops residence in the 14th and 15th century on the site of a monastic foundation. It was renovated in 1870 by Hans Price, and is now a Grade II* listed building. Nearby is a small building presented to the village by Miss Elizabeth Fazakerly, who lived at The Abbey in 1887 to house a small fire-engine. It served as the fire station until the 1960s and now houses a small museum of memorabilia related to the fire station.
"Beard's Stone" in Cave's Wood dates from 1842. It marks the reburial site of an ancient human skeleton found in a cave near Bishop's Cottage. William Beard, an amateur archaeologist who had found the bones, had them reinterred and marked the site with the stone with a poetic inscription.
Banwell Castle is a Victorian castle built in 1847 by John Dyer Sympson, a solicitor from London. Originally built as his home, it is now a hotel and restaurant and is a Grade II* listed building.
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