Castle Street, Nether Stowey from the former market place

Castle Street was the principal street of Nether Stowey, wide and containing many good houses. The Pooles’ house, where Tom Poole the tanner lived with his parents, dominates this view standing on the curve of the street as it begins its climb to the shoulder of Castle Hill.

In Coleridge’s day the paved area in the foreground was part of the market place, possibly housing the butchers’ stalls as a permanent shambles was built there c.1810.

The post office building, on the right edge of this view and on the corner of Castle Street and Lime Street, has been rebuilt but was a shop in the early 19th century and probably earlier. To the right of it stood the medieval market cross and the early 18th-century octagonal open sided market house demolished for road widening and improvement in the late 19th century, the market having long ceased to function.

A fair was held here on the 18th September until the later 19th century.