The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Taunton, Somerset*

Taunton, Somerset Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• Rooster Records on East Street is wicked. It's funky, bright and welcoming with its colourful psychedelic interior - it's like stepping back into the sixties. Cool man! Great place to chill out in, soak up the vibes, and is always warm and friendly. Check it out.
• The Train Station (The fastest way out (unless your with virgin) of town)
• OLD YMCA IN Middle street, no one notices it is there, but it's class, a YMCA that looks like a church, but is now offices.
• Edam Gorge. A gorge made of cheese. A rival for the nearby Cheddar Gorge, but nowhere near as good. And thats saying something.
• The Old Library cos they sell nice food now:-)
• Castle hotel, and the tudor pub.
• THe toilets next to the Castle Hotel which are worth every penny spent there.
• Tudor Tavern pub, the oldest building in the town centre and it's kept to its original structure and design all these years.
• the one in the middle, where aparently, dancing lessons go on! but its better for sitting on, and sheltering from the rain!
• Tudor Tavern
• Taunton's a nice place, but the buildings are pretty dull.

Demolish It Now Building

• Taunton Deane Borough Council, for putting the War Memorial in the middle of a roundabout. You need binoculars to read the names.
• Careers Center. Talk about useless
• St Margarets, the old leper hospital in Hamilton Road. Since two fires some time ago, it's been a total eyesore. It never gets repaired because no insurance company will touch it! Listed building? It ought to be on a list of prime sites for demolition!
• Debenhams. Its an eye-saw (freedom of speach)
• London, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Yorkshire, Lancashire, etc
• Not technically a building but the silk mills railway crossing!!!
• SCAT, college is ugly as fuck with some muck graphitti on the front.
• Bishop Fox's school which was recently built to the residents complete horror, ugly, man, ugly.
• The Job Centre and the multi storey car park are such eye sores !!!
• QUEEN'S COLLEGE!
• The multi-storey car park is a blot in Taunton centre.
• SCAT's Collinson Centre. It's made up of temporary buildings made of cardboard which are all falling apart.
• Town hall, the police station, Kings College.

The Best Things

• Leaving Taunton School
• ROOSTER RECORDS ON EAST STREET - THE BESTEST RECORD SHOP IN SOMERSET. HIGH FIDELITY EAT YOUR HEART OUT...!!!
• The best thing about Taunton is the M5 to London.
• The Bus station (there is a way out).
• The M5 because it takes me away from Taunton when I can't take any more.
• There is a Motorway and Main line Station or easy ESCAPE Its relatively clean and "nice" in the town centre Some puns are open till 3am
• In breeding. It allows us to excell at swimming with out webbed fingers and feet, and the springs which we stick onto our heads stop the local idiots walking into walls. Except the tragic man who walked into a lampost and was immediately sprung into a busy road. He will be missed.
• Everything is cheaper then in big citys but we still have lots of highstreet shops unlike other local towns.
• My Beloved CELLAR BAR-Until they bloody got rid of it! Bastards
• Friday night at Chambers. Being drunk in the new high street. The price of hash is so cheap. Perkin. Stupid little cider girly crews scattered around.
• The fat guy who walks up and down the street wearing nothing but a pair of very attractive and tight trousers.
• Really nice town, great if your not a city person but want a bit of life. Had a great time at Richard Huish college.
• Safe place to bring children up in, low crime rate. Usually okay weather. Easy to get to the beach from. Walking from one end of town to the other and indeed to the suburbs is no problem...45 minutes max.
• mmmmmmmmmm - its ENGLISH
• Voodoo Lounge, Chambers.
• A huge Heroin scene, very cheap and the pigs don't care and are gay.
• The home of Richard Huish College, which I frequented for three years.
• Lots of bars and pubs, at the moment there are over 15 within half a mile of the town centre, with plans for more to come.
• Lots of new development taking place, blending with some attractive old buildings - giving the town centre a clean and modern feel.

The Worst Things

• The attitude of the people who would rather you got ran over by a car than give up a small section of pavement. Hanging baskets too many of them, litter bins, lack of them.
• The negative aspects of this site were featured in a local newspaper. It seems that Taunton is not only a crap place, but the majority of the locals refuse to accept the truth. That kind of sums up this small-minded town of country folk.
• Seeing Taunton School
• all the kevs driving there cars through town on a saturday windows down playing some reallly commercial dance music!!
• I was born in Taunton. I did 8 years in the army and I would feel more comfortable walking down a Bosnian high street at night than ours. It's like walking into a wild west saloon when you walk into a pub here. The town is full of dullards and people who think they support Man. Utd. I can't wait to get out of the place, and when I've finished college I will.
• sorry, i want to spend the next 50 years AWAY from my computer screen
• Flowers, Hanging baskets, and the general attitude of every man for himself.
• Bridgewater and Wellington are close by - as is Minehead!
• There are big cement things called roads which allow outsiders to come here. No one ever leaves though. . .
• Incest
• Locals who blame every single fight in the town centre on "those fucking Marines"..come on..... ,my hubby's best friend was a Royal,he was such a nice chap,they aren't ALL bad! (just the few twats that give them all a bad name!)
• OLd folk and beer boys. a very ben sherman, Calvi Kline, kickers, river Island orientated place that you can find refuge from if you listen to me.com
• The poncey little villages scattered aroung the outsides which brings all the snobs out every weekend. Surprisingly, many of the young folk soon turn into skaters.
• Quite a few nutters who like a fight on a Saturday night.
• Boring for young people, Taunton is a very old fashioned conservative town which is very much still set in its ways. This attitude is complimented by the lack of things to do in the town. For example, no music venue and if you are walking around after 2am the police will stop you and ask questions....i repeat this is a safe place...the cops must die of boredom too !!!
• valbonne there's nothing to do etc queen's college racism
• The level crossing near Bishops Hull is enough to drive anybody insane. The gates are always down, sometimes causing huge tailbacks. They never built a bridge because they thought the railway would close down. Well it hasn't, and now we all have to suffer for it.
• One of the worst thing's next to seeing every police officer in town running red lights,is all of the hookers in town in the summer.I mean c`mon now,is'nt there anything we can do about this?
• Perkin Warbeck, Millers, rich, stuck-up members of certain public schools.
• All the drop outs in town, Taunton is beginning to get a reputation for the homeless and travellers littering the streets. I've never seen so many in one area - Get a job!
• Taunton is quite insular. People tend to come and not leave. This means that some local people have quite a limited view of the universe. I heard somewhere that it was in the top ten nicest places to live in Britain...

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

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Credits

Last updated: 2008-02-25