48 PAPERS, ETC. 



loath to qult a scene of such rieh and verdant beaiity. 

 Immediately at the foot of Ci'eechbury Hill, at a distance 

 of about a mile and a half from Taunton, were two well- 

 known mills, called then, as now, Bathpool Mills, the pro- 

 perty of the Abbats of Glastonbury, and rebuilt if not 

 originally founded, by Abbat Walter de Monyngton some- 

 where about the year 1364. The river furnished the 

 motive power of these valuable establishments, and con- 

 siderable jealousy was entertained of the use thus made of 

 it and the advantage thus derived. The Patent EoU of 

 the 8th of Kichard II, contains a long and very interesting 

 account of an Inquisition made at Taunton, on the Tuesday 

 next after the festival of S. Egidius, in the sixth year of the 

 aforesaid King, or the 2nd of September, 1382, to deter- 

 mine the truth of certain complaints against the Abbat for 

 various injuries done by these his mills, which, as it appears, 

 he and his predecessors had held for eighteen years and 

 upwards, to the river, its produce, and its trade. Among 

 divers chai'ges he is stated to allow willow and other trees 

 to hang over the banks of the Tone in the parish of 

 Monketon, so that boats are not able to pass as they were 

 wont between the mill of Tobrigge and Bathepole. The 

 site of Tobrigge mill was at some point of what is now 

 called the Back Water, — with its sedgy pools fringed with 

 old poUard willows, blackberry bushes, purple loosestrife, 

 and hemp-agrimony — which was possibly the mill-leet, 

 though, as I rather believe, the main channel of the stream, 

 commencing at Firepool weir, at which perhaps the mill 

 was situated, and rejoining the more modern though now 

 ancient channel under a rustic bridge of wood at a short 

 distance below Piiory weir. It was also alleged that the 

 mill for grinding corn called Bathepolemille projected from 

 the bank of the river more by six feet than it did afore- 



