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	County Town: Taunton County Population: 500,000 (estimate)
	Somerset is a well-wooded undulating county that sits in a flat basin surrounded on three sides by hills and on the fourth by the marshland of the Somerset levels and the Bristol Channel. To the north, the Mendip Hills are cut through by spectacular deep gorges known as "combes", of which Cheddar Gorge is the most famous. The numerous limestone caves found in the gorges were once inhabited by prehistoric people, Wookey Hole being one of the best examples. Spectacular cliffs and coves line the coast from the Devonshire-Somerset border to Minehead, where Exmoor National Park meets the sea.
	Somerset hosts a wealth of ancient earthworks, barrows, and even traces of a lake settlement of stilt dwellings at Meare, near Glastonbury. Many Stone Age artefacts have also been found in the Mendip caves. The Romans founded the town of Ilchester (just north of Yeovil) as an important military station, but it later became part of the Saxon Kingdom of Wessex. Glastonbury Abbey, now in ruins, is the earliest Christian foundation in England, and Somerset is often described as the cradle of early English Christianity.
	The county prospered from the wool trade and cloth trade, and by the mid-18th century Bath, the only source of natural hot springs in the UK, had become a fashionable spa town. Royalty and the aristocracy regularly visited the city, wishing to gain from what they believed to be medicinal and therapeutic properties of the hot mineral waters.
	Somerset is largely agricultural with a mild climate moderated by the sea. With its beautiful hills, stunning gorges, and the Exmoor National Park (home to many wild ponies, red deer, and horned sheep) the county is a major holiday and tourist destination.
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