The village boasts a fine Norman church
and moated ruined castle. With elegant buildings on it's main street
Stogursey is an unspoilt typical Somerset village. Nearby Hinkley
Point Power Station offers free tours of this massive landmark.
Stogursey started out as Stokes and was given to William de Falaise following the Norman Conquest in 1066. William de Falaise's daughter married William de Courcy (or Courci, depending which history you read!) and the village became known as Stoke Courcy. Over time, this became corrupted into Stogursey. The de Courcy family founded a branch of a French priory here in the twelth century (of which the dovecote is the sole surviving building). A decendent, John de Courcy, later made a name for himself by leading the Norman invasion of Ulster in 1171 for Henry II. Having successfully captured County Antrim and County Down, he gave land to the Stogursey Church of St Andrews in what is now Ballyhalbert.
For more information on Ballyhalbert and John de Courcy, please visit the Ballyhalbert Web Site.
The church of St Andrew, known as the "cathedral of the quantocks", was built in the 11th Century by William de Falaise. The fact that it is still very reminiscent of its original builders, the Normans, in partly due to a vicar in the 1940s by the name of Rev Basil Tucker. He believed that the Victorian restoration of the church, that had been carried out in the mid 19th century "did not express the majesty of God". With the assistance of a mason who lived on Tower Hill, he removed walls and floors in an attempt to discover the original shape of the building.
To the south of the village are the remains of a partly Norman castle, which was originally the stronghold of the de Courcy family. It passed to the tyrannical Fulk de Breaute, who made the castle a stronghold of robbers. He was finally expelled on the order of the Chancellor of Henry III, who had the fortress dismantled. It was subsequently rebuilt and occupied by the Fitzpaine and Percy families before being stormed and burned during the Wars of the Roses by the Yorkist Lord Bonville, and has remained a ruin since.
Stogursey Castle
In the spring of 1801, rapidly spiralling food prices lead to a horde of more than 100 people from Stogursey marching on the market at Nether Stowey and then onto North Petherton and Bridgwater.
www.stogursey.net |
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