During our Sunday visit to Stogursey, we saw that there was a bus to Taunton from the village at 7.30 the following morning, so before Monday daylight, we packed up our tents and set off for Stogursey, a two-mile walk, landing at the bus stop with over half an hour to spare.
A man teaching the driver the knowledge of the long route told us that passengers were never usually picked up in Stogursey.
When we reached Taunton, I happily gave the bus driver a bottle of Polish vodka, as he'd helped us escape from deepest rural Somerset, I think it was the only bus of the day!
In Taunton, we soon found ourselves passing a museum:
A big, posh-looking hotel:
A kind of gateway:
And many different kinds of churches.
Taunton Minster (St. Mary Magdalene church) above had a few statues at the front of the building:
Have just read that Taunton Minster is famous for its perpendicular tower.
Have also just discovered that the Church of St. Mary Magdalene dates back to the late Saxon period when King Ine of Wessex (670-726) established Christianity in the Taunton area.
While the earliest church structure here will have been built of timber, it was rebuilt of stone under Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, in the late 12th century.
Moreover, up to 1308, the church served as a chapel for Taunton Priory, but it was then made a parish church in its own right.
Besides this, the tower was initially built between 1488 and 1514, being mainly financed by wealthy wool merchants.
Interestingly, when the tower was restored in 1862 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the donkey that had taken the building stone up the tower was hoisted back up to admire the result of all its hard work.
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