Cartgate Picnic Area, Stoke-sub-Hamdon - 01935 829 333 tourism@southsomerset.gov.uk

Stoke-sub-Hamdon stretches around Ham Hill which is a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Iron Age hill fort, Roman site, and country park. The hill has given its name to the distinctive quarried hamstone which is quarried from a ridge of sandy limestone rock that is elevated above the lower lying clay vales and nearby Somerset Levels. It is of particular importance to geologists because of the assemblages of fossils which it contains, the sedimentary features which it displays and the way it relates to other rocks of equivalent age in the close vicinity. The Bronze Age and Iron Age hill fort was occupied by the Durotriges tribe. A Roman milestone was found at Venn Bridge in 1930: apparently it was made as an element in a colonnade and afterwards converted to a milestone inscribed with the name of the emperor Flavius Severus who ruled in 305-306 AD.

In the 10th century the estate passed to Glastonbury Abbey, but after the Norman Conquest was held by the Robert, Count of Mortain and granted to Robert FitzIvo. It then passed down through the Beauchamps of Hatch, becoming known as Stoke Beauchamp. It was acquired by the Duchy of Cornwall in 1443 and is still held by the Duchy. The parish of Stoke was part of Tintinhull Hundred.

The village is the site of the 14th century Stoke sub Hamdon Priory which is a former priest's house of the chantry chapel of St Nicholas, which was destroyed after the dissolution of the monasteries. The priory has been owned by the National Trust since 1946, and designated by English Heritage as a grade I listed building.