Huntspill village, Somerset

West Huntspill and East Huntspill are villages and civil parishes on the Huntspill Level, near Highbridge, Somerset. The civil parish of West Huntspill contains the hamlet of Alstone, and East Huntspill includes Cote. The parish of East Huntspill had a population of 1,179 and West Huntspill 1,480 in 2001.

The first mention of Huntspill is around 796 AD, when the area was granted to Glastonbury Abbey by Aethelmund, a nobleman under King Offa of Mercia. Huntspill was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Honspil, meaning 'Huna's creek' possibly from the Old English personal name Huna and from the Celtic pwll. An alternative origin is from Hun's Pill in Old English, meaning a port on a tidal inlet, or pill, belonging to a Saxon lord, or hun. The parish of Huntspill was part of the Huntspill and Puriton Hundred. The mouth of the River Brue had an extensive harbour in Roman and Saxon times, before silting up in the medieval period.

The village was flooded in the Bristol Channel floods of 1607.