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to Mr. Barrett's account of Stavordale Priory, where the nave of the old church is used as a barn, the chancel being fitted up as a dwelling-house. St. Benedict's church at Glastonbury was another of Abbot Bere's buildings; it has the remains of a good reredos, and a clerestory without 'an arcade.' We find an interesting circumstance noted by Murray: the ale-jugs cut upon the battlements show that it was the work of Abbot Bere, and his initials and mitre appear besides on the porch. This porch is said to contain the relics of a holy-water stoup.' St. John's Church is considered to possess one of the finest towers in the county, ranking next after Wrington and St. Cuthbert's at Wells. Wrington tower is 140 feet high: it is panelled with very lofty belfry windows and crowned with sixteen pinnacles of equal height; and Mr. Freeman declared that it was the finest square western tower, not designed for a 'spire or lantern, in all England, and therefore possibly in the 'whole world.'

At St. Cuthbert's the belfry stage is filled in the same way by two lofty windows; there are pinnacled turrets of the same kind; but we miss the prominent spiral turret of the Yeovil class and the staircase-turret, double buttresses, and horizontal divisions, which distinguish the church towers of the Taunton type.'

The story of an old inn is always interesting. We have sketches here of the well-known Luttrell Arms' at Dunster, showing a fine stone porch with a scutcheon on its gable, and on either side of the outer arched doorway ' unmistakeable crossbow loops.' The building in the wing has an open roof and a beautiful façade of carved oak. At Yeovil we are shown an old chantry-house, now used as the 'Castle Inn;' and a half-timbered house, writes Mr. Barrett, which is now the "George Inn," deserves to be most religiously preserved. Another very remarkable building is the George' at Norton St. Philip, which is also half' timbered,' and is noticeable besides for its stone-capped ' turret stair' and the remains of a galleried yard. It looks like an ancient manor-house, but there is reason to think that it was built as an inn by the Hinton monks for the convenience of the clothiers at Norton Dog Fair.' An anecdote about the Duke of Monmouth was told in connexion with the George' when the Archæological Society visited the place in 1875. The Duke, it was said, was here on June 27, 1685, and a man fired at him as he stood at the

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window in hopes of getting the price set on his head; on which, according to the ballad-mongers, the Duke

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'Most gently turned him round,

And said, "My man, you've missed your mark,
And lost your thousand pound." "

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One of the Abbey gateways in Glastonbury is now converted into the Red Lion.' The George Hotel' in High Street was built by Abbot Selwood in the reign of Edward IV., and it was probably intended from the first as a hostel for pilgrims. An older house used for the same purpose became the abbot's private guest-house, and was afterwards the 'White Lion Inn.' Mr. J. H. Parker regarded the George 'Hotel' as the best piece of domestic work in a town which is in itself a perfect store' of this class of antiquities. The front is one splendid mass of panelling, pierced for 'windows where necessary.' It is partly occupied by a four-centred gateway, with a bay window to the left, rising 'to the whole height of the house.'

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We ought, perhaps, to pay some attention to the legends by which the monks sought to do honour to the old British Church. A fraud, it has been suggested, almost becomes 'pious' when based on local patriotism and intended as a support for history. We notice an argument of this kind in Mrs. Boger's pleasant work on the Myths of Somerset. Glastonbury is treated as the most sacred spot in Britain, while it is admittedly unnecessary that its traditions should be strictly true. The story of the Grail' is taken as a meeting-place of truth and fable, a cross road between literature and myth.' The relic, it was thought, was carried to Glastonbury by St. Joseph of Arimathea, and when he had reached the hill like Mount Tabor' he planted the Holy Thorn that blossomed at Christmas, and his staff set in the ground became the great walnut tree which always broke into leaf at Barnaby Bright.' So firm was the belief in the early flowering thorn that when the calendar was altered crowds assembled to see if the tree would accept the loss of the eleven days and blossom according to Act of Parliament. Mrs. Boger was told that the New Style must be wrong, because it was on Old Christmas Day that the cattle knelt before the Glastonbury Thorn in Dillington Park. We learn from the History of Wellington' by Mr. A. L. Humphreys that there is a sprig of the Holy Thorn at West Buckland which is supposed to burst into bloom on Old Christmas Eve, and that a crowd assembles every year

to witness the phenomenon and to see the cattle kneel in the cowsheds at midnight. It is a very early thorn,' Mr. Humphreys adds, and it is frequently to be seen covered with blossom before Old Christmas Day.' Mr. Freeman treated the monkish traditions with some severity. If ever

anything,' he says, 'bore on the face of it the stamp of ' utter fiction, it is what professes to be the early history of 'Glastonbury.' St. David is brought from Wales, bearing that little altar of sapphire' which men believed to have fallen from heaven. St. Patrick, they pretended, had dwelt in Avalon, and had died there in the place where they set up his shrine. St. Columba, the mighty Apostle of the North, had found a refuge in this holy island. St. Bridget, it was said, had dwelt hard by, upon the ridge at Beckery, and had left her wallet and rosary to be treasured for ages afterwards by reason of the sweetness of her memory.' It is going too far,' writes our historian, when the tale brings in such an amazing gathering of saints from all times and places to shed their lustre on a single spot.'

The county is famous for its holy springs and healing wells, some of which are still visited by great numbers of rustic patients. The story of the Bath waters is beyond the scope of this review and the books to which it relates; but we may mention one or two other medicinal springs which are or were renowned for their use in cases of sore eyes and slight affections of the skin. Some of these are described in Mr. Barrett's book, and a notice of others may be found in a paper by the Rev. F. W. Weaver on a painting of St. Barbara, the patroness of the Bab-well' at Cucklington. Mr. Barrett gives us an interesting sketch of the spring of the Chalice' at Glastonbury, famous in the last century for an extraordinary pilgrimage of more than ten thousand persons in one month, drawn to the place by the report of a dream and its strange fulfilment. Among other celebrated springs is the well of St. Anne-in-the-Wood at Brislington, a name which probably explains the curious title of 'Queen Anne's wishing-well' at Cadbury. Near Bruton we hear of a Lady-well and a Pat-well' dedicated to St. Patrick. St. Aldhelm's memory is preserved in the same way at Doulting. We should note the abbreviation of the saints' names, which may have been the diminutive of affection, so often observed where the population retains a Celtic element. This may have something to do with the title of a Kits-well dedicated to St. Christopher, and a 'Ped-well' for St. Peter's spring at Ashcott. St. Ursula's name abides at Hersewell,

near Trull, and St. Rumbald was certainly the patron of Rumwell by Taunton. Skipperham' is the country name for St. Cyprian's well at Ashill, which ebbs and flows every day. The water is chalybeate and is used for animals as well as for human patients: and the place is visited by a great number of people, especially on the first three Sundays in May, when the spring is believed to be more than usually agitated.

The village of Meare, so often mentioned in the records of Glastonbury, is divided from the town by a wide tract of marsh; it formerly occupied an island in a large pool, or lake, which stretched away from the very foot of the Tor. The Fish-house has been taken for a cottage of the time of Edward II. or his next successor. Mr. J. Parker, however, showed that it was probably the residence of the officer in charge of the fisheries, and was built by Abbot Sodbury, who made great improvements upon the estates, between the years 1323 and 1334. Until recently the Fish-house had a roof of open timber-work in excellent preservation; but Mr. Barrett has to record its destruction by fire not long before the date of his visit. We observe that his book contains several sketches of Norman and early English details from the remarkable church of Stoke-sub-Hamdon; and here again we have to record a disaster, the fabric having been destroyed by fire since the book was published. The old manor-house at Meare and the chancel of the parish church are both attributed to Abbot Sodbury. John of Glastonbury said that the abbot constructed magnificent chapels and halls, and that the church at Meare, by which we understand the chancel, was dedicated by him, and the court there surrounded with a stone wall,' with the addition of a variety of fishponds. The manor-house has one uncommon feature, the hall being on the upper floor with rooms below it; some have supposed that it was only a fine 'solar,' or upper chamber; but perhaps the best solution is to suppose that it was used for both purposes. Mr. Barrett sketches the great fireplace with its pentagonal hood, and a fine pair of corbel brackets, one on either side, 'to carry lamps or candles.' In a similar instance at Tickenham Court, a manor-house of the fifteenth century, there are brackets apparently constructed with the same object. It has also been supposed that two ornamental supports on either side of the hall at East Martock were intended for the same use; but Mr. Barrett considers that they are too small and narrow for such a purpose. In the mullions of the

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windows at Meare are the old hooks and holes pierced through the stone, used for setting the wooden shutters that replaced the glazed frames when the owner was away.

On leaving Glastonbury the visitor will naturally proceed to study Wells Cathedral and the wonderful examples of old domestic architecture that surround the White Lady of the West.' His best approach is by the Shepton Mallet road, so as to see the view from Dulcot Hill of the Cathedral, and the unique group' of the Chapter-house, Cloisters, and Palace. The architecture of the Cathedral is too large a subject to be dealt with here. The sketches before us are almost entirely confined to the Palace, the Deanery, and the Vicar's Close; the gates of the Precinct are shown in a general view of the foreign-looking market-place; and there is a good etching of Bishop Beckington's chain-gate and bridge.' The Palace is most beautiful in itself, as all will agree who have been there in summer and seen the embattled walls reflected in the shining moat, the lawns encircling the chapel and the vast ruin of the hall, and the columned crypt,' now the dining-room, that was built as a storehouse by Bishop Jocelyn in the days of Henry III. The Palace is also of great historical importance, as being the best example of an inhabited thirteenth-century house remaining in England, and perhaps in Europe.' The earliest part is 'Jocelyn's Block;' the next in date was the hall built by Bishop Burnell towards the close of the century. Its roof was supported by two rows of pillars, being more than sixty feet wide; and we are reminded by Mr. E. Buckle, in his elaborate account of the building, that no carpenter of that period would have thought it possible to arch such a span. There is one mediæval roof, which, as we now see it, covers as great a breadth; but Westminster Hall, when roofed in the fourteenth century, was itself divided into nave and aisles.' The chapel, a fine building too often restored, was completed about the same time as the hall. In the year 1340 Bishop Ralph enclosed the palace with a moat and fortified it with walls and towers. One of the six bastions formed a prison for criminous clerks, with a guardroom above, and was afterwards known as the cow-house.' Lord Arthur Hervey, when receiving the antiquaries of the county, made an apt quotation from Chyle's History, describing Bishop Ralph's walls, redoubts, and half-moons: 'these he joined by a stately gate and gatehouse, castle-wise, making it not only serviceable against rogues, or any sudden assault, but likewise very

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