Bridgwater Castle in The Topographer, May 1790, Volume 2, number 5

This article from the Topographer is primarily a regurgitation of Leland with some additional notes: its most notable feature being an (exaggerated) illustration of the Watergate and the building later replaced by the Watergate Hotel. For a discussion of the image see this page. The building on the left hand side is probably the Ship and Castle Inn.

Topographer
‘of a small part of the ruins of which a plate is here given’. Note that Bond Street referred to here is that if London, not the one behind the Watergate. More on James Robson can be read here and he was involved with may other works besides the Topographer. It is assumed this is a depiction of the Watergate, although a couple of details are known to be wrong – the little door on the inside of the gate for example does not have an arch and never has, and the scale is probably over done. However it perhaps gives us a decent impression of how the gate looked before the building of the adjoining bank, and rebuilding of the Ship and Castle.

There is little new material gained in this description, although it is an interesting independent eighteenth century history of the town, uncoloured by Collinson’s History.