Ladymead Community School

The Taunton Academy is a school with academy status in Taunton, Somerset, England. The school was formed by the merger of The St Augustine of Canterbury Church of England/Roman Catholic VA School and Ladymead Community School. Its original sponsors were Somerset County Council and the Diocese of Bath and Wells, however the school transferred to the Richard Huish Trust in 2015 and is now sponsored by Richard Huish College. It was opened on 9 September 2010 by Peter Price, the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Initially the academy admitted pupils aged 11 to 16 and will be based in the existing schools' buildings. In September 2011, the academy opened a sixth form for 100 students. In 2013, the academy moved to new and refurbished buildings on the former Ladymead site on Cheddon Road, with the former St Augustine site being closed. This plan was temporarily put on hold following the government's major review of the Building Schools for the Future programme in July 2010, and was subject to review by the Department for Education.

King's Hall School is a co-educational prep school that provides day and Boarding school. The school is located within the parish of Cheddon Fitzpaine, just north of Taunton, Somerset, in the West of England. It is housed in the Grade II* listed building Pyrland Hall. It was named King's Hall School after Pyrland Hall joined with King's House.

Pyrland Hall is a country house near Cheddon Fitzpaine in the English county of Somerset. It is a Grade II* listed building.

The St Augustine of Canterbury School was a joint Church of England and Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided (VA) secondary school in Taunton, Somerset, England. It was established on 28 May 1956 and closed on July 2010. It was a specialist Science College with 264 students between the ages of 11 and 16. The school closed in July 2010 and students merged into The Taunton Academy. At the time of its closure it had the lowest GCSE results in Somerset, and the eighth-lowest in England.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Teresa of Lisieux in Taunton, Somerset, England, dates from 1958–1959. It is the only known church design of Eric Francis, a Chepstow-born architect who worked mainly in Monmouthshire and the South-West of England. St Teresa's is a functioning parish church within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Clifton, and a Grade II listed building.

St Andrew's Church is a Church of England church in Taunton, Somerset, England. Designed by J. Houghton Spencer, it was built in 1880–81 and has been a Grade II listed building since 2016.

Taunton Metro Rail (TMR) was a light rail network proposed in 2009 to use a combination of existing rail infrastructure and the construction of new infrastructure in and around Taunton, Somerset.

Taunton railway station is a junction station on the route from London to Penzance, 143 miles (230 km) west of London Paddington station. It is situated in Taunton, Somerset, and is operated by Great Western Railway. The station is also served by CrossCountry trains and by the West Somerset Railway on special event days and by mainline steam excursions.

Taunton Vale Sports Club (usually referred to as "Taunton Vale", "Vale" or "TVSC") is a multi use community sports club located in Taunton, Somerset. Taunton Vale HC, Taunton Cricket and Taunton Vale Tennis Club are the resident sports clubs. It is also the regular home venue of both Somerset County Cricket Club's Second XI, Somerset CCC also holding many of their games against MCC Universities teams at the ground, which have so far included two first-class matches, in 2012 and 2015. The sports club has two county standard cricket fields and a pavilion, a sand dressed hockey ATP, a 3G pitch, 4 netball/tennis hard courts and a multi use sports hall. The first LED sports lighting installation in the UK was installed on this site in 2014, providing competition level lighting across all artificial pitches and courts.

The Somerset Military Museum is part of the Museum of Somerset located in the 12th century great hall of Taunton Castle, in Taunton, Somerset. It is a "registered and accredited museum" with the British Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council, and is a part of the Museum of Somerset. The museum covers Somerset's military history from 1685 onward. It received a £10,000 grant from the Somerset Military Museum Trust for the restoration project.

Taunton () 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 the Duke of Monmouth crowned himself King of England here 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 sieges of Taunton were a series of three blockades during the First English Civil War. The town of Taunton, in Somerset, was considered to be of strategic importance because it controlled the main road from Bristol to Devon and Cornwall. Robert Blake commanded the town's Parliamentarian defences during all three sieges, from September 1644 to July 1645. The first siege was laid by Edmund Wyndham on 23 September, and was primarily composed of Royalist troops from local Somerset garrisons. After initial assaults drove Blake and his troops back into Taunton Castle, the blockade was conducted from 1–2 miles (1.6–3.2 km) away, and concentrated more on starving the garrison than continued attacks. The town was relieved by a force under James Holborne on 14 December. Over the next three months, Blake was able to establish a network of earthen defences in Taunton, including a basic perimeter and several forts. The Royalists began the second, and bloodiest, siege in late March 1645, initially under Sir Richard Grenville. A series of disputes between the Royalist commanders allowed Taunton some respite at the start of the siege, but in May the attacks were fierce under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton. After five days of intense fighting, which had once again driven the defending army back to a small central perimeter including the castle, the Royalists retreated in the face of a Parliamentarian relief army commanded by Ralph Weldon. Lord Goring, who had proposed the second siege, renewed the blockade for a third time in mid-May, after engaging Weldon's departing army and forcing it back into Taunton. Goring's siege was lax and allowed provisions into the town, diminishing its effectiveness. The Parliamentarian defence tied up Goring and his 10–15,000 troops, who would have otherwise been available to fight for King Charles at Naseby, where historians believe they could have tipped the battle in favour of the Royalists. Instead, after securing a Parliamentarian victory at Naseby, Thomas Fairfax marched his army to relieve Taunton on 9 July 1645.