Some of the prettiest nooks of old-world "Zoomerzet" are to be found under the lovely heather-clad Quantock Hills. The beauty of the scenery has inspired Coleridge, Wordsworth, and many famous men, not the least of whom was poor Richard Jeffreys, who has written sympathetically of the delightful vale to the west of the range. To the north and north-west of Taunton the churches of Kingston and Bishop's Lydeard are both remarkable for their graceful early-Tudor towers. Of the two, the former is the finer specimen of Perpendicular work, the soft salmon-yellow colour of the Ham stone being particularly pleasing to the eye. The situation of the church is fine, commanding grand views; and at the intersection of the roads to Asholt and Bridgwater one gets a glorious prospect of Taunton and the blue Blackdown Hills beyond on one side, and on the other the sea and the distant Welsh mountains. Both churches have good bench-ends full four hundred years old, the designs upon them being as clearly cut as if they had been executed only a few years ago. One of them at Bishop's Lydeard represents a windmill, from which we gather that those useful structures were much the same as those with which we are familiar to-day. At Cothelstone to the north, approached by a romantic winding road embosomed in lofty beech trees which dip suddenly down into a picturesque dell, the church and manor-house nestle cosily together, Beneath the rolling Quantocks the road runs seawards, and at Crowcombe, embowered in woods, brings us to another picturesque group: the church on one side and There are fine carved bench-ends in the church, one bearing the date 1534 in Roman figures. Upon another is represented two men in desperate combat with a double-headed dr Crowcombe Court, a stately red-brick house of the latter part of the seventeenth century, has replaced the older seat of the Carews. Among the fine collection of Vandycks is a full-length of Charles I. and his queen, given by the second Charles to the family in acknowledgment of their loyalty. Queen Henrietta looks prettier here than in many of her portraits. There is also a fine Vandyck of James Stuart, Duke of Richmond, and of Lady Herbert, and some of Lely's beauties, including Nell Gwynn and the Countess of Falmouth, whose buxom face recalls some of de Gramont's liveliest pages. A few miles to the east of Crowcombe, on the other side of the range of hills, is the moated castle of Enmore, whose ponderous drawbridge can still be raised and lowered like that at Helmingham. It is a formidable barrack-like building of red stone, not of any great antiquity. In the earlier structure lived Elizabeth Malet, the handsome young heiress with whom the madcap Earl of Rochester ran away. Pepys on May 28, 1665, relates "a story of my Lord Rochester's running away on Friday night last with Mrs. Mallett, the great beauty of fortune and the north, who had supped at Whitehall with Mrs. Stewart, and was going home to her lodgings with her grandfather my Lord Haly [Hawley] by coach; and was at Charing Cross seized on by both horse and foot men, and forcibly ta The Enmore estate passed to Anne, the eldest of their three daughters, who married a Baynton of Spye Park near Melksham, where memories of the profligate earl linger, as they do at Adderbury. The famous "Abode" at Spaxton, as impenetrable as Enmore although it has no drawbridge, is close at hand. An adjacent hill, locally said to be a short cut to heaven, commands a superb view of the surrounding country. The original founder of the sect could scarcely have found a prettier nook in England. A few miles to the north-west of Crowcombe is the picturesque village of Monksilver, the church of which is rich in oak carvings of the fifteenth century. The pulpit and bench-ends are particularly fine, but the screen has been much m Near Monksilver is the old seat of the Sydenhams, Combe Sydenham, a fine old mansion, whose lofty square tower is un-English in appearance. The house was built by Sir George Sydenham in 1580, who is locally said still to have an unpleasant way of galloping down the glen at midnight. Perhaps he is uneasy in his mind about the huge cannon-ball in the hall, which he is said to have fired as a sign to his lady-love that he was going to follow after and claim her as his bride. There are portraits of some bewigged Sydenhams of the following century, the famous doctor, perchance, and his soldier brother, Colonel William the Parliamentarian. Some rusty old swords hang on the walls, and there is a curious painted screen of Charles II.'s time which is sadly in need of repairs. The servants' hall, with its open fireplace and tall-backed settle, remains much as it has been for two hundred years or more. All these things point to the fact that the same family has been in possession for generations: at least it was owned by a Sydenham not so many ye At the back of Combe Sydenham are the remains of an old mill. The wheel has disappeared, and the waterfall splashing in the streamlet below, together with an ancient barn adjacent, form a delightful picture. To the west is Nettlecombe, a fine old gabled house, dating from the latter part of Elizabeth's reign, containing ancestral portraits of the Trevelyans and some curious relics, among which is a miniature of Charles the martyr worked in his own hair. The estate belonged originally to the Raleighs, whose name is retained in Raleigh Down and Raleigh's Cross by Brendon Hill. Elworthy church, to the south-east, commands a fine position, and boasts a painted screen bearing the date 1632 and some carved bench-ends. But the churchyard looked sadly neglected and weed-grown. The great limb of a huge yew tree overhangs the stocks, which we are grateful to observe have been restored, and not allowed to decay as those at Crowcombe. From here we went farther to the south-east in sea Equidistant from Monksilver to the north-west is Old Cleeve, a pretty little village near the coast, whose ruined Cistercian abbey has nooks and corners to delight the artist or antiquarian. The grey old The road from here to Dunster is delightful, and as you approach the quaint old town—for it is a town, difficult as it is to believe it—the castle stands high up on the left embosomed in trees, a real fairy-tale sort of fortress it appears, with a watch-tower perched up on another wooded hill to balance it. The Luttrells have lived here for centuries, and during the Civil War it was for long a Royalist stronghold, held by Colonel Wyndham, the governor. The gallant colonel's spirited answer to the threat of the Parliam Within the castle there is a curious hiding-place which carries us back to those troublous times. Local tradition has connected it in error with the visit of the second Charles, whose room is still pointed out; but the king was then not a fugitive, otherwise doubtless this secret chamber would have proved as useful to him as that at Trent House in 1651. The main street of Dunster, with its irregular outline of Minehead Church is equally interesting. It stands high up overlooking the sea, and commands a magnificent prospect of the hanging-woods of Dunster and the heights of Dunkery. The rood-screen is good, but has been mutilated in parts. The ancient oak coffer is remarkable for the bold relief of its carving, representing the arms of Fitz-James quartered with Turberville as it occurs in Bere Regis church. There is a fine recumbent effigy of a man in robes, said to be a famous lawyer named Bracton, although he has much the appearance of a cleric. Whether it was considered conclusive proof that the person interred was a lawyer from the fact that on being opened the skull revealed a double row of upper teeth, we do not know, but there are other evidences. A victim of insomnia is said to resemble a lawyer, because he lies on one side then turns round and lies on the other; and this is precisely what this effigy did. We had the good fortune to fall in with the organist of St. Michael, and he declared that he had taken a photograph of the worthy in which the figure had changed its position, the head being where the feet should be—everything else in the picture being precisely in its right position! In the church is one of those quaint little figures which in former years was worked by the clock "Jack-smite-the-clock," of which there are examples at Southwold, Blythborough, etc. The former rector held the living for seventy years, and some trouble was caused because he had willed that some of the ancient parish documents were to be interred with him robed in his Geneva gown. It is said his wish was duly carried out, but the papers were afterwards rescued. Bossington, on the coast to the north-west of Porlock, is a delightful little village, lying at the foot of the great heather-clad hills. The rushing stream and the moss and lichen everywhere add much to its picturesqueness, but we should imagine there is too much shade and damp to be enjoyable in the winter. In the middle of The weary traveller has a great treat in store, for the view from the top of Porlock Hill is remarkable. But it is well worth the climb, and by the old road it is indeed a clim The romantic scenery of Lynmouth and Lynton is too well known to call for any particular description here. Little wonder that one sees so many honeymoon couples wandering everywhere about the lovely lanes. Lovers of old oak, too, will find all that they desire at Lynmouth, for here is the most tempting antique repository, calculated to make tourist collectors of Chippendale and oak wish they had economised more in their hotel bills. Motor cars sail easily down into the valley from Porlock, but a sudden twist in the steep ascent to Lynton causes many a snort and groan accompanied by an extra scent of petrol. But we have overstepped the county line and are in Devon. |