We are looking at two distinct markets, in an East Devon town with a classic market town pedigree. Axminster rises above the River Axe, just before it is joined by the Yarty, climbs on the Northern outskirts and falls away down Castle Hill again to the river. A Saxon settlement c.660AD, with a minster 50 years later, may also have had a castle. Many locals describe foot-wide walls in the basement of buildings in the Market Square area. Axminster station is on the edge of the town centre.
Urban developments lie largely to the North and East.
When the old station was updated, Axminster's cattle pens were almost the final things to be removed. Abe Newbury - Axminster's that sort of Devonshire market town. The Brewers became de Mohuns by marriage. Their newly-confirmed market benefitted from Reginald Mohun's gift of town and tolls, shortly after 1246, to his Cistercian Abbey at Newenham, one and a half miles south west. When the Christian church revolted against trading on Sundays, Axminster's markets moved to Saturday.