Ilminster
Ilminster is a town and also civil parish in the countryside of south west Somerset, England, with a population of 5,808. Bypassed in 1988, the town currently exists just east of the joint of the A303 (London to Exeter) and the A358 (Taunton to Chard and Axminster). The church consists of the district of Sea. Ilminster is stated in papers dating from 725 and in a Charter granted to the Abbey of Muchelney (10 miles (16 kilometres) to the north) by King Ethelred in 995. Ilminster is additionally pointed out in the Domesday Book (1086) as Ileminstre meaning 'The church on the River Isle' from the Old English ysle and also mynster. By this period Ilminster was a flourishing neighborhood as well as was granted the right to hold a weekly market, which it still does. Ilminster belonged to the hundred of Abdick and also Bulstone. In 1645 during the English Civil War Ilminster was the scene of an altercation between legislative troops under Edward Massie and Royalist pressures under Lord Goring who fought for control of the bridges prior to the Battle of Langport. The community has the structures of a sixteenth-century grade school, the Ilminster Meeting House, which acts as the town's art gallery as well as opera house. There is also a Gospel Hall.