Description: Authoritative and comprehensive account of one of Somerset's leading towns.
Castle Cary is a relatively unspoilt town deep in the Somerset countryside, its narrow streets rich in high-quality late eighteenth and nineteenth-century buildings. Its most famous industry, horsehair weaving, still flourishes.This volume explores its history from the original castle and its lords to its rebirth as an industrial town. It also covers many villages, among them Ansford, early home of Parson Woodforde; Kingweston, virtually recreated bythe Dickinson family; Keinton Mandeville, once famous for its paving stone quarries and as the birthplace of Henry Irving; tiny Wheathill, almost obliterated by a golf course; and West Lydford, the family home of the early eighteenth-century diarist John Cannon. Other places of note include Barton St David, home of Henry Adams, the reputed ancestor of two American Presidents, and Lovington, whose small primary school traces its origins back to an eighteenth-century charity school. M.C. Siraut is a historian and archivist; she is the county editor for the Victoria History of Somerset.
Brief description: Mary Siraut is the editor of the Victoria County History of Somerset based in the Somerset Heritage Centre in Taunton. She is a historian and an archivist and has worked for the Somerset Victoria County History since 1978.
Review Quotes: [B]eautifully produced.and meticulously researched [...] This is an exemplary volume, which demonstrates the worth of the Red Books [...] It is local history of high quality, an invaluable resource not only for those looking at any community in the area, but also for anybody researching more widely one of the many themes around which it is constructed.-- "THE LOCAL HISTORIAN"