Taunton (England)

Taunton (England), town in southwestern England, in Taunton Deane Borough. The administrative center of Somerset, Taunton is a market center for the surrounding fertile agricultural plain, which is noted for the production of apples and fermented cider. The town is a transportation junction, and manufactures here include textiles and agricultural machinery. A castle was built on this site about 710 by the West Saxon king Ine. After the rebellion of James Scott, duke of Monmouth (who was proclaimed king of England here in 1685), the jurist George Jeffreys conducted the so-called Bloody Assizes in the castle at Taunton. Population (1993 estimate) 60,300.