The village is about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) northwest of the small town of Mere, and is part of the Stourhead estate, which includes much of the west of the parish.

To the east of Stourton village lies the steep slopes and downland of White Sheet Hill, a section of which is within the civil parish.

Heath Hill Farm, in the west of the parish, is a Biological Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The parish is on the western edge of the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

[2] Streams in the parish meet to form the River Stour, which flows south into Dorset.

These include Park Hill Camp (within Stourhead grounds), a small Iron Age hillfort, containing a later Iron Age settlement;[3] Kenwalch's Castle (on the Somerset border), a large Iron Age hillfort;[4] and White Sheet Camp (to the east), another large hillfort, investigated in the 19th century by Sir Richard Colt Hoare.

[5] About 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) southwest of Stourton village are Pen Pits, a series of small circular pits where stone was quarried for quern stones, in the Iron Age, Roman and medieval periods.

[8] Domesday Book in 1086 recorded a settlement of 28 households at Stortone, and land held by Walter of Douai.

[16] Sir Henry Hoare, whose son and heir had been killed in World War I, gave the house and gardens to the National Trust in 1946 and they are now open to the public.

[16] The manors of Bonham and Gasper (also called Brook)[18] were tithings of Stourton although they were part of Somerset's Norton Ferris Hundred.

[29] Kilmington joined in 1980[30] and Upper Stour continues today as a united parish covering the four churches.

The cross was moved to the city's College Green in 1736 but removed in 1762, and given to Henry Hoare who erected it here.