Somerset

Ilchester, a small market town situated on ‘a flat luxuriant soil’ on the south bank of the River Ivel (or Yeo), had been an important fortified settlement in Roman and medieval times, and still laid claim to being the county town. Since the seventeenth century, however, its economy had been in decline, and by 1830 it was described as ‘an inconsiderable town ... mean in appearance’. There was a large ‘rural district in the parish beyond the town’, and the latter occupied only 35 of the 735 acres.

Bath, a ‘highly celebrated and truly elegant city’ with ‘many fine squares, crescents and terraces’, situated on the banks of the River Avon and surrounded by ‘fertile hills, abounding with springs of excellent water’, became a fashionable spa and pleasure resort in the reign of Queen Anne. It underwent extensive development between the 1720s and the 1790s, multiplying severalfold in size and spreading out beyond the city walls into the adjoining parishes of Walcot, Bathwick, and Lyncombe and Widcombe.

Taunton, ‘a populous and respectable market town’, situated on the River Tone in a ‘fertile and salubrious valley’, was ‘one of the principal towns’ in the county. Largely through the efforts of the Market House Society, which had obtained private Acts of Parliament in 1768 and 1817, the central streets were ‘spacious, well-paved, and lighted with gas’, giving a general appearance of prosperity, and the town had attracted a number of ‘genteel families’ of independent fortune.

A market town and seaport situated on the banks of the tidal River Parrett, in a plain of ‘very rich and productive’ agricultural land, Bridgwater was described in 1822 as ‘large, populous [and] flourishing ... a place of extensive trade [and] a great thoroughfare’. The Parrett divided the town into two, the western part being ‘larger and better built’ than the eastern, known as Eastover. Bridgwater’s role as an important distribution centre for the South West of England was boosted by the opening of the link, via Taunton, with the Grand Western Canal in 1827.