Notable Residents
In July 1789, local resident John Walford murdered his wife after a visit to Castle of Comfort Farm (a pub that still exists). He was tried and found guilty. He was executed in the spot where he committed his crime and hung in a gibbet. Walford's gibbet is a local landmark. The cage in which he was hung is now held at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. Walford attained notoriety due to the brutality of the crime in an otherwise quiet and peaceful village.
Thomas Poole was a local tanner who became wealthy and founded the Nether Stowey Women's Friendly Society in 1807. The Society continued (under several different names) until 1975 and is still celebrated annually. Poole was also a patron of Coleridge and Wordsworth.
The village was the birthplace of Jesuit priest Robert Parsons.
The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived in the village between 1797 and 1799, as noted above.
Read more about this topic: Nether Stowey
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or residents:
“a notable prince that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.”
—Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)
“In most nineteenth-century cities, both large and small, more than 50 percent—and often up to 75 percent—of the residents in any given year were no longer there ten years later. People born in the twentieth century are much more likely to live near their birthplace than were people born in the nineteenth century.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)