Advent of the Railway
As trade from the town increased, the traffic between Bridgwater and Bristol increased dramatically. The only way to Bristol at the start of the nineteenth century was via Bath Road, over Puriton Hill to Pawlett. Bristol Road didn’t exist but was int...
Bath Brick
Despite its name, Bath Brick was a Bridgwater product. Anywhere the British army went, the Bath Brick went likewise. It started in 1820 when it was discovered that using silt from the river bank, bricks could be made which when scraped would produce a...
Bridgwater’s Regiment
Bridgwater was well served with the instruments of law and order. It had its own police force and regiment. During the years when Napoleon posed a threat, it was necessary for each district to have its own militia. In 1803, 20,000 men enrolled in...
Disenfranchised
In the May 1837 bye-election, the Tory candidate, Henry Broadwood, won by 279 to 221. Such was the national interest in this bye-election that the editor of the London Times chartered 15 relay horses, one at each end of a ten-mile stretch on the road ...
Political Corruption
In 1754, George Bubb Doddington spent £3,400 trying to buy the Bridgwater electorate and described his experience as follows: All this trouble and vexation and expense flows from a set of low, worthless fellows….Spent these three days in an infamous an...
Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway
In 1854 the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway company opened a line between Highbridge and Glastonbury. This line was extended to Burnham-on-Sea in 1858 and with a spur line down to Bridgwater from the newly created Edington Junction in 1890. The t...
The Borough Constabulary 1834-1940
It is hard to imagine that the town once had its own police force. The old police station and gaol, established in 1834, were in Fore Street. The gaol had separate accommodation for men and women, overseen by James Bussell. The town police force consisted o...
The Brick and Tile Trade
For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the brick and tile industry provided the financial backbone to the town. Local clay had long been used for making bricks as far back as mediaeval times, but it wasn’t until the end of the seventeenth ce...
The Bridgwater Workhouses
In 2017 the last part of Bridgwater’s Northgate Workhouse was demolished to make way for a school. This web site tells the story of why such a cruel system was devised and tolerated and eventually brought to an end. The Victorian workhouse system w...
Utilities
By an Act of Parliament of 1834, Bridgwater was permitted to introduce gas lighting to the streets replacing the previous oil lamps which were lit by John Gillingham and his son. The introduction of gas for street lighting brought the added benefit ...
Wicker Products
Another one-time Bridgwater industry was basket-making using the local willows, or withies. The industry was active throughout the nineteenth and well into the twentieth centuries. There were many small basket-making cottages, based in private homes. Fi...