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The general design, though highly artificial, is well balanced. The S. porch a very successful and noteworthy feature of the church is dated 1508, The rest of the building must be nearly contemporaneous. The interior is rich, but somewhat devoid of interest. St James's Church has a good tower with turret and spirelet likewise rebuilt.

Its chief attraction is its singularly interesting church, which possesses one of the most stately towers in the county. This, as the most meritorious feature, should perhaps be noticed first. The arrangement of double belfry windows in the two upper stages is unusual, and the conventional lines of the elaborately pierced parapet above are relieved by the projecting stair turret and spirelet.

Wookey, a village 2 m. W. from Wells, with a station on the G.W.R. Cheddar branch. The church chiefly Perp., with a blend of E.E. is interesting. The tower stair turret carries a lofty spirelet. On the S. side of the sanctuary is a small Perp. chapel decorated with modern frescoes, containing a plain altar-tomb to Thos. Clarke and wife, 1689. In the churchyard is the base of a cross.

W. of Sandford and Banwell station, was once the site of a Saxon monastery, bestowed by Alfred upon Asser, and is now famous for its church and caves. The church has a tower with triple belfry windows, which is lofty and finished with pinnacles and spirelet. It should be compared with Winscombe, both being spoilt by the flatness of the buttresses.

It possesses, however, a remarkably fine late 15th-cent. hexagonal market-cross, crowned with a very graceful spirelet: note brass on one of the piers to Walter Buckland and Agnes, his wife. The interior, originally E.E., was never handsome, and has been ruined artistically by the erection of some huge aisles, with galleries, which have absorbed the transepts.

On the road between Ilchester and Somerton, which passes over the hill below which the church is situated, a fine view may be obtained, embracing the Quantocks, the Blackdowns, and part of the Mendips. Kingston St Mary, a village 3 m. N. of Taunton. Its church, prettily situated on rising ground, has a fine W. tower, crowned with numerous pinnacles and a turret spirelet.

On one of the hills above the combe is a Roman encampment fenced with a rough wall of stone, locally known as Burrington Ham. Another picturesque spot in the neighbourhood is a glen called Rickford. The church, which stands in some fields near the mouth of the gorge, is a Perp. building with a low W. tower and a peculiarly graceful spirelet over the rood-loft turret. N.E. of Athelney Station.

The church is in the middle of the old village, which lies back from the sea. It has a stately Perp. tower crowned with a spirelet. The interior is unreformed and disappointing. Near the church is an ancient manor house with an Elizabethan turret. Portishead possesses a fine new Naval College, built to replace the old training-ship Formidable. Nightingale Valley is a favourite walk.

There are also two mutilated effigies, preserved in the N. porch, which are supposed to belong to the de Lyons family, who once owned the park. Ashwick, 2 m. S.E. of Binegar. There is no village, but merely a group of houses. The church has a graceful late Perp. tower, with spirelet: this is the only original part of the fabric, the rest having been rebuilt in 1825.

Close by the parapet of the aisle the square angles of each buttress are cut off so as to form a base for the octagonal pinnacle above. These, when in their complete state, were undoubtedly very beautiful; for besides what can be now seen, it is known that they were once completed each with a spirelet. Now they have the substitutes suggested by parsimony to cover their incompleteness.