Huntspill

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(West) Huntspill and East Huntspill

Villages and parishes on the Huntspill Level, near Highbridge, Somerset, England.

The first mention of Huntspill is around 796 AD, when the area was granted to Glastonbury Abbey by Aethelmund, a nobleman under King Offa of Mercia.

Huntspill was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Honspil, meaning 'Huna's creek' possibly from the Old English personal name Huna and from the Celtic pwll.[1] An alternative origin is from Hun's Pill in Old English, meaning a port on a tidal inlet, or pill, belonging to a Saxon lord, or hun.

The mouth of the River Brue had an extensive harbour in Roman and Saxon times, before silting up in the medieval period.

The village was flooded in the Bristol Channel floods of 1607

[edit] References

  1. ^ Robinson, Stephen (1992). Somerset Place Names. Wimbourne: The Dovecote Press Ltd. ISBN 1874336032. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • A History of the County of Somerset: Volume 8: The Poldens and the Levels: Huntspill (2004)
  • The Somerset Urban Archaeological Survey: Burnham and Highbridge by Clare Gathercole

Coordinates: 51°12′N 2°59′W