Castle Street was perhaps the single most important street in the medieval town because it ran along a height of land between the river and the pool, between the castle and the market and it was laid out by the King’s representative when the Borough was created.

Castle Street was originally narrow and barely wide enough for two carts to pass through but like the other streets, it too was widened in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the head of the street but not exactly in the same location were successive town halls, the present one completed in l797. There have been others dating back to the 14th century.

Fairs and markets were held, and protection from arrest marked out by an area designated by large granite stones, one of which still survives set in the surface of the street. The stone marking the edge of the town’s fair is on the west side of Castle Street, the side nearest the river at the top end, closest to the town hall.

Courts and alleyways evolved as burgage plots ..the strips of land allocated to freemen….were filled in and used for sheds, workshops and later, houses. There is a refence to such a house in an alley off Castle Street in the 1700s when it was described in normal usage as "a little house in ye backside"!

Until 1721 the castle itself survived, a relic of an earlier age, but as the area occupied was quite large, the land became more valuable and it was acquired by the corporation in l704, in part as use for a church - St. George’s, on the site of the Victoria monument.