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 wey, meaning 'stone way'.
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.
Over Stowey was part of the hundred of Cannington.
The village was the site of six fulling mills and was a site for copper mining.
Plainsfield was a centre for weaving and pottery, the manor having been held by the family of Admiral Robert Blake from around 1600.
In the 1830s three quarters of the village was bought by Henry Labouchere, 1st Baron Taunton who built Quantock Lodge as his home which later became a school.
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