In Saxon times, King Alfred's military road, the Herepath, ran up from Combwich, Cannington (a possible site of the Battle of Cynwit) and Over Stowey, along the present course of the Stowey road, across Dead Woman's Ditch to Crowcombe Park Gate, south along the main ridge of the Quantocks to Triscombe Stone, then west across the valley to the Brendon Hills and Exmoor.
Banks's naked decomposed body was found in a stream by a woman collecting moss six months later on Easter Sunday (3 April 1988) in the Quantock hills, at a site named "Dead Woman’s Ditch", part of an Iron Age camp at Dowsborough.