A
Neolithic axe has been found in the parish, and
Iron Age pottery was discovered during the construction of
Culverhay School. There is some evidence of two
barrows. The southeastern boundary of the parish follows the route of the
Fosse Way a
Roman road that linked
Exeter (
Isca Dumnoniorum) in
South West England to
Lincoln (
Lindum Colonia) in the
East Midlands, via
Ilchester (
Lindinis),
Bath (
Aquae Sulis),
Cirencester (
Corinium) and
Leicester (
Ratae Corieltauvorum). The village lies on the route of the
Wansdyke (from ''
Woden's Dyke'') an
early medieval or
Roman series of defensive linear
earthworks, consisting of a ditch and a running embankment from the ditch spoil, with the ditching facing north. Its construction is attributed to the
Saxons, probably in the late sixth century. The parish of Englishcombe was part of the
Wellow Hundred. The
Domesday Book of 1086 records that Englishcombe was held by Nigel de Gournay, who would have won his lands in Englishcombe,
Twerton,
Swainswick and
Barrow Gurney by fighting for
William I of England. His original home may have been
Gournay, which was halfway between
Dieppe and Paris. Thomas de Gournay was involved with the murder of
Edward II at
Berkeley Castle in 1327. The earthwork remains of the Gournay family castle, just north of the village of Englishcombe, are known as
Culverhay Castle, built in the 12th century and now a
Scheduled Ancient Monument. The
tithe barn attached to Rectory Farmhouse was built by
Bath Abbey in the early 14th century. It was restored in the 1990s and has been designated as a Grade II*
listed building. Rectory Farmhouse itself was built onto the barn in the early to mid 17th century. The Manor of Inglescombe, as it was previously called, was acquired by the
Duchy of Cornwall in 1421. Along with the Duchy's more recent acquisition of the neighbouring village of
Newton St Loe in 1941, they form the Duchy's largest estate outside
Dartmoor. The mining of
Fuller's earth started in the parish in the 19th century but expanded around the time of
World War I with pits in Middle Wood and Vernham Wood. It continued until the 1960s when small underground springs made the extraction too expensive to continue. ==Governance==