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Watchet is a harbour town, civil parish and electoral ward in the English county of Somerset, with a population of 3,785.〔 It is situated west of Bridgwater, north-west of Taunton, and east of Minehead. The parish includes the hamlet of Beggearn Huish. The town lies at the mouth of the Washford River on Bridgwater Bay, part of the Bristol Channel, and on the edge of Exmoor National Park. The original settlement may have been at the Iron Age fort Daw's Castle. It then moved to the mouth of the river and a small harbour developed, which was attacked by Vikings in the 10th century. Trade using the harbour gradually grew, despite damage during several severe storms, with import and exports of goods including those from Wansbrough Paper Mill until the 19th century when it increased with the export of iron ore, brought from the Brendon Hills via the West Somerset Mineral Railway, mainly to Newport for onward transportation to the Ebbw Vale Steelworks. The West Somerset Railway also served the town and port bringing goods and people from the Bristol and Exeter Railway. The iron ore trade reduced and ceased in the early-20th century. The port continued a smaller commercial trade until 2000 when it was converted into a marina. The church is dedicated to Saint Decuman who is thought to have died here around 706. An early church was built near Daw's Castle and a new church was erected in the 15th century. It has several tombs and monuments to Sir John Wyndham and his family who were the lords of the manor. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' which was written in the area is commemorated by a statue on the harbourside. ==History== Daw's Castle (''Dart's Castle'' or ''Dane's Castle'') is an Iron Age sea cliff hill fort about to the west of the town. It was built and fortified, on the site of an earlier settlement, as a ''burh'' by Alfred the Great, as part of his defense against Viking raids from the Bristol Channel around 878 AD. It is situated on an east-west cliff about above the sea, on a tapering spur of land bounded by the Washford River to the south. Its ramparts would have formed a semicircle backing on to the sheer cliffs, but only about are visible today. A Saxon mint was established here in 1035, probably within the fort. It is a scheduled monument. There is no sign of Roman occupation, but the Anglo-Saxons took Watchet from the native Britons around AD 680. Under Alfred the Great (AD 871−901) Watchet became an important port, and coins minted here have been found as far away as Copenhagen and Stockholm. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' records the early port being plundered by Danes led by Earl Ottir and a 'Hroald' (possibly Ottir's king Ragnall) in 987 and 997. Watchet is believed to be the place where Saint Decuman was killed around 706 and its parish church is dedicated to him. At the time of the ''Domesday Book'' Watchet was part of the estate held by William de Moyon. The parish of Watchet was in the Williton and Freemanners Hundred in the Middle Ages.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/SOM/Miscellaneous/ )〕T With access to wood from the Quantock Hills, records show that paper making was established by 1652.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Social history of Watchet )〕 In the 15th century, a flour mill was established by the Fulford and Hadley families near the mouth of the Washford River. By 1587 the Wyndham estate had established a fulling and grist mill to the south west.〔 By 1652, the mill had started to produce paper.〔 In 1846 business partners James Date, William Peach and John Wansbrough bought the business and introduced mechanised-production using a water wheel-powered pulley system.〔〔 In the 1860s, the factory was converted to steam power and the local harbour was used to import raw materials and export finished goods.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Watchet harbour )〕 Most of the mill was destroyed by fire in 1889 but it was rebuilt and less than ten years later five paper making machines were operating. The mill became the largest manufacturer of paper bags in the UK.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Wansbrough Paper Mill )〕 In 1896, the business became the Wansbrough Paper Company, a limited liability company and is now known as the Wansbrough Paper Mill.〔 With an annual capacity of 180,000 tonnes of product and employing 100 people, it is the UK's largest manufacturer of coreboard, and also produces containerboard, recycled envelope, bag and kraft papers.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Company information — DS Smith Paper, Wansbrough Mill )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Watchet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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