WIVELISCOMBE (pronounced Wilscomb)  , a market town in the western parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, 91 m . W. of Taunton by the Great Western railway . Pop . (1901), 2246 . It stands on a picturesque sloping site in a hilly district, and has some agricultural trade and a brewing industry, while in the neighbourhood are slate quarries . Traces of a large Roman camp may still be seen to the south-east of Wiveliscombe (Wellescombe, Wilscombe, Wiviscombe), which is near the line of a Roman road, and hoards of Roman coins have been discovered in the neighbourhood . The town probably owed its origin to the suitability of its position for defence, and it was the site of a Danish fort, later replaced by a Saxon settlement . The overlords were the bishops of Bath and Wells, who had a palace and park here . They obtained a grant of freewarren in 1257 . No charter granting self-government to Wiveliscombe has been found, and the only evidence for the traditional existence of a borough is that part of the town is called " the borough," and that until the middle of the 19th century a bailiff and a portreeve were annually chosen by the court leet . A weekly market on Tuesdays, granted to the bishop of Bath and Wells in 1284, is still held . During the 17th and 18th centuries the town was a centre of the woollen manufacture .