Editing Trowbridge (section)

===Castle===
{{Main|Trowbridge Castle}}
The first mention of [[Trowbridge Castle]] was in 1139 when it was besieged.<ref>[http://www.localauthoritypublishing.co.uk/councils/trowbridge/history.html First mention of Trowbridge Castle] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828024531/http://www.localauthoritypublishing.co.uk/councils/trowbridge/history.html |date=28 August 2008 }}: ''Local Authority Publishing'' website. Retrieved on 25 January 2008.</ref> It was no longer in military use by the 14th century and by the 16th only ruins remained.<ref name=":1" />
The castle is thought to have been a [[motte-and-bailey]] castle, and its influence can still be seen in the town today. Fore Street follows the path of the castle ditch,<ref>{{cite book|last=Graham, Alan H.|first=and Susan M. Davies|title=Excavations in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, 1977 and 1986–1988: The Prehistoric, Saxon, and Saxo-Norman Settlements and the Anarchy Period Castle|year=1993|publisher=Wessex Archaeology|location=Salisbury|page=1}}</ref> and town has a Castle Street and the Castle Place Shopping Centre.

It is likely the Castle was built by [[Humphrey I de Bohun]]; his family dominated the town for over a hundred years.

The most notable member of the family was [[Henry de Bohun, 1st Earl of Hereford|Henry de Bohun]], born around 1176, who became lord of the manor when he was about 15 years of age. It was he who really began to shape the medieval town. In 1200 he obtained a market charter, arguably the earliest for a town in Wiltshire, and one of the earliest in England. His officials were to lay out [[burgage]] plots for traders, artisans, and shopkeepers. The outline of these plots can still be seen today in the footprints of some of the present shops in Fore Street.

Within Trowbridge Castle was a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon church. Henry de Bohun turned this to secular use and instead had a new church built outside the Castle; this was the first St James's Church. In the base of the tower of the present day church, below the subsequently added spire, can be seen the Romanesque architecture of the period.

In 1200 Henry de Bohun was created [[Earl of Hereford]] by [[John, King of England|King John]]. Like other barons, Henry was later threatened by King John and his caput of Trowbridge was taken from him. Henry then joined with the other barons to oppose John's arbitrary rule and forced him to seal [[Magna Carta]] (the Great Charter) at [[Runnymede]]; and was elected as one of the 25 enforcers of the charter. Some years after Runnymede, Henry regained control of Trowbridge.