Before Doomesday

The Romans were certainly in and around - pottery and coins have been found in the parish at Cleeve Hill/Hill Common to the south; and a corn drying oven kiln beside a hill ridge to the west.  The Court, also to the west, is believed to be on the site of a villa. (Known as Membury Court today)           

Field names indicate an Anglo-Saxon presence in the parish. (Culver croft -the close with a dove-cot) and Chilpits (where chalk was quarried) for example.  Later the Danes came nearby and overcame the local king at Charmouth in 833.  In 901, Alfred the Great, who was King of Wessex, held a Witan (Royal Council) in Axminster.                                                      

In the tenth century King Athelstan MAY have done battle with the Danes near Axminster (a major battle of some sort certainly occurred at that time), and the Devon historian, Tristram Risdon (c.1640) contends that casualties were transported to Membury Fort.

Web site address:  www.thelocalchannel.co.uk/memburylocalhistorysociety