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Stourton in Somerset County England History and GeographySTOURTON, a parish partly in the hundred of NORTON-FERRIS, county of SOMERSET, but chiefly in the hundred of MERE, county of WILTS, 2½ miles (W.N.W.) from Mere, containing, with the hamlet of Brook, otherwise Gasper, 658 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £17, and in the patronage of Sir R. C. Hoare, Bart. The church, dedicated to St. Peter, is in the decorated and later styles of English architecture, and contains some monuments of the ancient family of Stourton. Henry Hoare, Esq., in 1724, gave £2000, to be applied for the erection of charity schools and workhouses within the parish. On the site of a large castle, built by John de Stourton, an elegant mansion, of Italian architecture, has been built by the Hoare family, the present proprietors of the estate; and on the highest point in this demesne is a lofty tower, erected, in 1772, by the late Henry Hoare, Esq., in honour of Alfred, the illustrious king of the West Saxons, who, on issuing from his retreat in the Isle of Athelney, is said to have fixed his standard on this ground, bearing the name of Kingsettle Hill: it lies directly on the line of his march to Petra Ecbricta, now Brixton-Deverill, and Edington, where he fought the Danes, and gained a signal victory over them. Under a statue is the following inscription: 'Alfred the Great, A. D. 879, on this summit erected his standard against the Danish invaders. To him we owe the origin of juries, and the creation of a naval force. Alfred, the light of a benighted age, was a philosopher and a Christian, the father of his people, and the founder of the English monarchy and liberties.' In 656, Cenwallus, King of Wessex, defeated the Britons here, and drove them to Petherton, on the river Parret. In 1001, another obstinate battle was fought near the same spot, in which the Danes overthrew the Saxons under Cola and Edsigus. And again, in 1016, King Edmund here defeated the Danes under King Canute. At the south-western extremity of the parish, and partly in Somersetshire, is a wide boggy tract of country, part of which exhibits a great number of curious excavations, known by the name of Pen Pits: of these there are several thousand, of various forms and dimensions, scattered over a surface of nearly seven hundred acres. Stourton gives the title of baron to the family of Stourton, so created in 1448. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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