TAUNTON PRIORY. 49 



tlüie ; that a fulling mill acljoinlng the said corn mill, 

 erected by Kichard de Acton after the great pestilence — 

 that, perhaps, of 1369 — and also in the hands of the aforesaid 

 Abbat, was similarly objectlonable; and that, by reason of 

 these impediments to the water, the cornfields and pastures 

 were inundated, The same injury and by the same means 

 was alleged to be done to the klng's highways between Taun- 

 ton and Bathepolebrigge. This, the local reader will not 

 fail to recoUect, refers to the anclent highway, now for the 

 most part disused, which runs for a considerable distance 

 along the bank of the river above the mill, and is one of the 

 most picturesque of the old Somersetshire roads, a very wil- 

 derness of verdure, the eonstant resort of gipsies who delight 

 in its quiet and shady nooks, and well-known to and well- 

 beloved by all Tauntonians. It was also asserted that, 

 through the bullding of the mills, the boats which used to 

 carry merchandise from Briggewater to Taunton could not 

 go as formerly. The complainants seemed determined to 

 make out a case, for they proceed to allege that the fish 

 which used to swim from Briggewater to Taunton were so 

 hindered by the aforesaid mills that they could no longer 

 swim as they were wont. And they added that the bank 

 of the river which used to be thirty feet in width, was 

 then not more than ten or twelve feet at the most, from 

 Bathepole as far as Cryche, so that boats could not pass as 

 they used to do. The Abbat pleaded in rcply to these 

 chargcs that the trees complained of grew above the mill 

 of Bathepole, where boats ncver went, nor ought to, nor 

 could go ; that the new buildings of the mills were cxactly 

 of the same depth, breadth, and height as the former had 

 been ; that there Avas a place in the lower part of the said 

 mills, called Bathepolecrosse, up to which all boats carae, 

 time out of mind, from Briggewater tovvards Taunton, and 



VOL. IX., 1859, PART II. G 



