Stockton

Evidence of Neolithic presence includes a long barrow on Stockton Down. From the late Iron Age there was a settlement on a ridge in Stockton Wood, in the south of the present parish, which continued to be occupied in the Romano-British period until the 4th century. Now known as Stockton Earthworks, the site of about 70 hectares has been the subject of several archaeological investigations which produced many finds. Stockton's boundaries were fixed by 901. Soon after the Dissolution, in 1547 the manor was granted to William Herbert, later 1st Earl of Pembroke. In 1585 his son sold the manor to John Topp, a London merchant tailor whose father and grandfather were yeomen of Stockton; the Topps…