WANTED - someone to taste beers produced by 1,851 brewers in just seven days.

If that job isn't to your fancy, how about checking Taunton's sewers are well looked after and free from obstructions?

Unfortunately, the deadline for applications passed a few hundred years ago, so if you're looking for work, best check out the County Gazette Jobs section.

Ale testers were employed by Taunton Borough Court Leet for 1,000 years to make sure the local beers were up to scratch.

And the role of rhine ridders was to ensure people twice a year cleaned the rhines that ran through their streets in the days before Wessex Water.

Environmental health didn’t exist when Taunton Court Leet was first established in the eighth century, but instead there were shamble keepers in charge of seeing butchers didn’t charge excessive prices for their meat or cut the hides of beasts slaughtered by them.

The court was responsible for the maintenance of the criminal and civil law in the borough of Taunton until its significance diminished in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

But the historical organisation still exists to this day, although without the powers it once enjoyed.

Members are meeting for its annual law day on Friday, November 9, in the old council chamber at Taunton’s Municipal Buildings, in Corporation Street, when the staves of office will be handed over.

The Lord of the Manor, John White, will be handing over the charter to his daughter, Jennifer Lewis, after 40 years.