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Situated in a narrow combe, made by the By Brook as it flows southwards on its journey to the river Avon and the sea, lies what is arguably the prettiest village in England. Indeed, it was given this title by a national newspaper in 1962 and from then the, not unsubstantial, number of visitors of the 19th and early 20th centuries increased dramatically. The By Brook, which made the steep sided combe, also made the village, with its fast flowing waters giving power to the medieval fulling mills, creating a prosperous medieval cloth industry. The village is on oolitic limestone at the edge of the Cotswolds, and from Roman times onwards quarrying in the area has provided local building stone. A Roman road, the Fosse Way, runs from south-west to north-east to the west of the village, forming part of the north western parish boundary.
Indications of prehistoric activity are few, worked flints from the mesolithic, neolithic and bronze age periods, may only indicate short term occupation. There were however extensive settlements in this area in the Roman period, with a settlement to the west of the parish, south east of West Kington, a villa on the edge of Truckle Hill, just over the parish boundary, and a Romano–British settlement on high ground, across the river from the church of St. Andrew. This small settlement has yielded much pottery and fragments of roof tiles and was probably a farmstead with several buildings. There is evidence that this site was occupied for a long time. Pottery fragments have been found on four other sites in the parish and, in 1825/6, a hoard of 300 Roman brass coins was found with a stone that was possibly an altar to Diana. This could have been the site of a Romano– British villa. This was a well-settled and extensively farmed landscape, with settlements either side of the Fosse Way and a shrine to Apollo at Nettleton. As with most places in Wiltshire there is little evidence of Saxon occupation as most structures and utensils were made of wood. We do know however that Saxons settled in Castle Combe from the details in the Domesday Book.
In 1086 the Come (Castle Combe) estate comprised 10 hides, which was sufficient land for 10 plough teams. The landholder, Humphrey de L’Isle, retained 4¾ hides with 13 serfs operating four plough teams. Tenants occupied the remaining hides and operated six plough teams. There were three mills, probably at Gatcombe, Colham and Nettleton, 12 acres of meadow, and an area of woodland about 3 miles by 1½ miles. The population of the whole estate would have been between 90 and 120 people.
There may not have been a nucleated village in Saxon times and both castle and church do not seem to have been built until the early 12th century, after which settlement probably grew around the site of the church. The castle was of the motte and bailey type, probably dating to 1140 and consisted of four baileys on an earthen mound. The owners, the Dunstanville family, created a deer park and Robert de Dunstanville was made Baron of Castle Combe. The ‘Castle’ had been added to Combe after 1140 to distinguish it from other Combes in the neighbourhood. There is landscape evidence of man-made rabbit warrens and strip lynchets, the latter formed when farmland needed to expand to satisfy a growing population.