Taunton (ˈtɔːntən) is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the Bishops of Winchester. Parts of the inner ward house were turned into the Museum of Somerset and Somerset Military Museum. For the Second Cornish uprising of 1497, Perkin Warbeck brought an army of 6,000; most surrendered to Henry VII on 4 October 1497. On 20 June 1685 in Taunton the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England in a rebellion, defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor. Judge Jeffreys led the Bloody Assizes in the Castle's Great Hall.
The Grand Western Canal reached Taunton in 1839 and the Bristol and Exeter Railway in 1842. Today it hosts Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset County Cricket Club, is the base of 40 Commando, Royal Marines, and is home to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office on Admiralty Way. The popular Taunton flower show has been held in Vivary Park since 1866, and on 13 March 2022, St Mary Magdalene parish church was elevated to the status of Taunton Minster.
The town name derives from "Town on the River Tone or Tone Town. Cambria Farm, which now hosts a park and ride close to the M5 motorway Junction 25, was the site of Bronze and Iron Age settlement and a Roman farm. There was a Romano-British village near the suburb of Holway. Taunton was important in Anglo-Saxon times as a burh with a mint. King Ine of Wessex threw up an earthen castle about 700, but it was levelled in 722 by his queen, Æthelburg of Wessex, to prevent seizure by rebels.
A monastery was founded before 904. The bishops of Winchester owned the manor, and obtained the first charter for their "men of Taunton" from King Edward in 904, freeing them from all royal and county tribute. Some time before Domesday, Taunton became a borough with privileges and a population of some 1,500, including 64 burgesses governed by a portreeve appointed by the bishops.