This is not one of those destinations that IgoUgo will ever have on a "most desirable" list. Most people in Britain have never heard of Bridgwater. I probably would not have heard of it if I had not been born here. But it is in an interesting part of the world. Glastonbury, home of King Arthur and pop festivals, and Cheddar, home of cheese, are only a few miles away. And though it may look insignificant now, in the 17th Century Bridgwater was at the centre of national political events.
You can find Bridgwater in Somerset, a part of South-West England once known as The Summer Country because its low-lying peat moors were flooded every winter. The land only existed in summer. Thousands of years ago, the people living here built houses on stilts to avoid the winter floods. Then, as time went by, irrigation tamed the land and it became a rich farming region. Bridgwater was probably built because it was an island of high ground within the marshes, and because it was a good place for bridging the River Parrett.
Nowadays the town is just one more settlement that people pass on their way down the M5 to the seaside holiday towns of Devon and Cornwall. But much of this journal will take you back in time to a dark period of British history. Nowadays the war between Catholics and Protestants is fought mainly in the streets of Northern Ireland, but in the 17th Century religious affiliation was a matter of life and death throughout England.