merchant. And in the town centre visit one of the town’s oldest buildings, the George Hotel. Although the datestone on the wall shows 1673, parts of the building are thought to be considerably older. Castle Cary’s best-known building must surely be the Market House. It occupies pride of place in the centre of the town and images of its honey-coloured stone have graced many a Somerset picture book and tourism leaflet. But while there’s no doubting that it is much loved by residents and visitors alike and adds much to the character of the town, it is a comparatively recent building of no great historical significance. It was competed in 1855 on the site of an earlier market building dating from 1616, although some sources suggest that this had been replaced by a brick structure by the time the Market House Company was formed in 1853. Built at a cost of £2,300, the new building was designed to provide a covered area on the ground floor for the market, including some semi-permanent stalls or
‘shambles’ where meat and dairy produce were sold, and a couple of cells to accommodate the town’s trouble-makers. The floors above were intended for reading rooms and space for large meetings and social functions, and over the years they have been put to a variety of uses including a theatre, cinema and school of dancing. Traditional markets ceased many years ago and the Market House has long outlived its original purpose. Nowadays the ground floor is home to the town council office and tourist information centre, and renovations a decade ago included constructing a roof over the back part of the shambles area, glazing the sides and installing a kitchen and toilets. Now the area is used for a variety of events, exhibitions, displays and functions such as weddings. And every Tuesday the cobbled forecourt and undercroft revert to their original role by hosting the town’s Market Day. and attracting a goodly number of stallholders and customers from near and far.
The upstairs contains the town’s excellent museum. If the town’s history intrigues you, it’s well worth spending an hour or two there. It is crammed with exhibits reflecting local industries, agriculture, lifestyles and people through the ages, In the main display room you can find out more about two of the town’s once-important businesses – T S Donne Ltd, flax spinners and ropemakers, and John Boyd & Co Ltd, horse-hair weavers – and other rooms contain displays relating to the aforementioned Douglas Macmillan and Parson James Woodforde who was born in Ansford in 1740 and served as curate at Castle Cary from 1765 till 1773. His legacy is his diary which records in great detail the social scene of the period – the places, the people, what they ate and what it cost, how they behaved, worked, spent their leisure and died. Run entirely by volunteers, the museum is usually open until the end of September on Mondays to Fridays from 10.30am till 12.30pm and 2.00pm till 4.00pm and on Saturday mornings. Admission is free, but I suspect you will be sufficiently impressed to leave a generous donation in
the collection box. Now that life is returning to some semblance of normality the best way to enjoy Castle Cary’s historic and retail charm is to pay a visit. And perhaps to take coffee or lunch at one of the town’s cafés, restaurants and pubs which are now open again for business. It remains a traditional market town with shops and services that meet the needs of local people and its future prosperity depends to a large extent on attracting more visitors. Roger Richards.
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01963 359494 THE VISITOR June 2021 15
