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Places in Somerset "PQRST"
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| Stogursey was an enclosure with several baileys, raised at the end of
the eleventh century. A stone curtain and mural towers were built in the
twelfth century. The castle was beseiged in the 1220's. Some stonework
remains. |
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An early Norman earthwork enclosure castle, raised on the south side
of the River Tone and surrounded by a moat, received a rectangular stone
great hall building inside its north-west perimeter in the very early
1100's. The castle belonged to the bishops of Winchester. Sometime in
the second quarter of the twelfth century, further stone buildings were
raised, including a great tower, rectangular in plan, with corner
turrets, considered by local specialists to have been not dissimilar to
the White Tower of London, though on a smaller scale. Of this great
tower only the foundations remain. The dimensions were 63ft by 80ft and
the walls were from 12-13ft think.
Further improvements were undertaken in the early thirteenth century,
including a constable's tower, about 50ft by 33ft, which still has a
vaulted undercroft, and a major reconstruction of the great hall which
is particularly well documented. There are details of accounts for
building materials, including 6,800 board nails, 16,000 tie nails and
32,000 lath nails. The hall has survived to a considerable extent, but
with some modifications, and it today a local-authority run building
that houses the County Museum of Somerset. This has a major
archaeological section. The hall bears scars from gun-fire during sieges
by the Royalists in the Civil War. In 1662, the castle was slighted by
government order, and the great tower was demolished. The great hall was
the scene of part of Judge Jeffrey's notorious Bloody Assize, held after
the collapse of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. |
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