Banwell
Banwell is a village as well as civil parish on the River Banwell in the North Somerset district of Somerset, England. Its population was 2,919 according to the 2011 census. Banwell Camp, east of the town, is a univallate hillfort which has actually yielded flint implements from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. It was also occupied in the Iron Age. In the late 1950s it was dug deep into by J.W. Hunt of the Banwell Society of Archaeology. It is bordered by a 4 metres (13 ft) high bank as well as ditch. The remains of a Romano-British vacation home were found in 1968. It consisted of a courtyard, wall surface and bath home near the River Banwell. Artefacts from the website recommend it came under disuse in the 4th century. Earthworks from farm buildings, 420 metres (1,380 ft) south of Gout House Farm, occupied from the 11th to 14th centuries where archaeological remains suggest the site was first inhabited in the Romano-British period. The raised area which was occupied by the Bower House was surrounded by a water filled ditch, part of which has since been integrated right into a rhyne. The church belonged to the Winterstoke Hundred. Banwell Abbey was built as a bishops house in the 14th as well as 15th century on the site of a reclusive foundation. It was refurbished in 1870 by Hans Price, and is now a Grade II * listed structure. Close-by is a tiny structure presented to the town by Miss Elizabeth Fazakerly, that lived at The Abbey in 1887 to house a small fire-engine. It worked 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 old human skeleton located in a cavern near Bishop's Cottage. William Beard, an amateur excavator who had actually discovered the bones, had them reinterred and marked the website with the rock with a poetic inscription. Banwell Castle is a Victorian castle constructed in 1847 by John Dyer Sympson, a lawyer from London. Originally constructed as his house, it is now a resort and restaurant and is a Grade II * listed building.
