Situated at the west end of the Mendips on the north side about 5 miles from the coast of the Bristol channel at Weston Super Mare, besides the main village it consists of the hamlets of Winthill, Yarborough, Whitley Head, Hill End, Knightcott, Wolvershill, West Wick, St Georges, Waywick, Rolstone and Towerhead.

The settlement may have started on the south side of the Mendip ridge at Winthill but finally settled on the north side where there is a fine spring that produces up to 7 million gallons a day in the winter season, this spring ran mills from at least Doomsday up until the 1920's when the spring was capped and the water used for the ever expanding Weston Super Mare, at this time the village also lost its pond that made an excellent front piece for the mainly 15^th century parish church.

The doomsday book lists three mills in Banwell, we do not know if they were fed from the pond as it may not have been there but they were certainly fed by the waters of the spring, where these mills were we do not know but what we do know is that since the early 18^th century there has been a mill near the spring head fed from the pond where the bowling green now is,. The buildings of the mill who's wheels stopped turning in 1921 are still there, one of the building that looks like a bungalow with a lawn in front just before the steps down to church street is where the water wheel was that drove the mill stones.

To the west side of the Grist Mill in the 18^th & 19th century was a Paper Mill that was turned into a Brewery in the 1850's and lasted until 1906. The mills were owned by the Emery family and were run by the Castle family and later the Willet family ran the gristmill.

The Castle family who ran the brewery had various partners which change the name on the product, Thomas Castle, Thomas Castle & Son, Castle & Rogers, Castle, Son & Wood. The brewery owned public houses around the district where it supplied the beer. The old pond site now a bowling green and the old mill buildings down to the Brewers Arms public house reside in the ownership of the Waterworks Company.

Banwell was one of the manors of the Bishops of Bath & Wells who had a residence to the east side of the church which they vacated in the 18^th century and has been used as a private residence since, it has been called the Court House and latterly Banwell Abbey the name that is used to this day, this monastic title seems to have arrived from ancient times when Alfred gave Asser "a monisterium at Banwell" how big or what they meant by a monisterium we do not know. Around 1874 the house was rebuilt to its present style by Dyer Sympson who built the Castle, the Abbey property was split into four during the 1950's.

As mentioned before the mainly 15^th century church has a 100 foot high tower that contains10 bells from the 18^th to 20^th century and a clock dated 1884. The body of the church has a nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles and it is said, a rather short chancel considering the proportions of the rest of the church. The font dates from the 12^th century carved stone pulpit from 15^th century and a beautiful carved rood screen built and set up in 1552 and escaped the reformation, there are also some very early bench pews given to date of the 1480's. The church has undergone major restorations in 1812, 1862 and the mid 1960's.

It is unfortunate that five roads of the village, Church Street, East Street, Castle Hill, High Street and West Street, meet in the square where once the village cross stood, this cross was moved and rebuilt in the 1754 and removed altogether around 1798 as it was thought to