The first documentary evidence of the village of Crowcombe is by Æthelwulf of Wessex in 854, where it was spelt 'Cerawicombe'. At that time the manor belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. In the later Saxon period, King Alfred led the resistance to Viking invasion from Athelney, south-east of the Quantocks. According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", the early port at Watchet was plundered by Danes in 987 and 997. Alfred established a series of forts and lookout posts linked by a military road, or herepath, so his army could cover Viking movements at sea. The herepath has a characteristic form that is familiar on the Quantocks: a regulation wide track between avenues of trees growing from hedge laying embankments. The herepath ran from the ford on the River Parrett at Combwich, past Cannington hill fort to Over Stowey, where it climbed the Quantocks along the line of the current Stowey road, to Crowcombe Park Gate. Then it went south along the ridge, to Triscombe Stone. One branch may have led past Lydeard Hill and Buncombe Hill, back to Alfred's base at Athelney. The main branch descended the hills at Triscombe, then along the avenue to Red Post Cross, and west to the Brendon Hills and Exmoor. There is some evidence that an area of the hills known as Quantock Common may have been a Saxon Royal Forest.