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Updated: May 26, 2025
The building is Dec., but much restored. On the R. hand side of lane leading to the church is the old rectory, a quaint 15th-cent. building, with small octagonal turrets and a front much decorated with heraldic devices. Chewton Mendip, a prepossessing village, held in some repute by sightseers, on the N.E. edge of the Mendips, 5 m. N.N.E. from Wells.
Bath and Keynsham lie near at hand; on the N.W. are Dundry and the factory chimneys of Bristol, and in the distance the Monmouthshire hills; to the S. is Stanton Prior in the foreground, and beyond, the long line of the Mendips stretching away to the R.; whilst on the L. may be discerned the Wiltshire Downs and Alfred's Tower at Stourton. Staple Fitzpaine, a parish 5-1/2 m. S.E. of Taunton.
Dunstan of whom I heard too much at Glastonbury saved King Edmund, hunting in the Mendips, from falling over Cheddar Cliff, horse and man? Why, I don't even know who Edmund was, or when he happened. Celtic relics, found in caves, are less than nothing to me, and Roman coins are a mere aggravation when one is bothered how to get current coin of the realm.
As for Medenham, though he had carefully mapped out the exact line of conduct to be followed in Bristol while watching the radiantly white arc of road that quivered in front of the car during the run from the Mendips, for a second or two he dared not trust his voice to ask the hall-porter certain necessary questions.
High over the valley's head rose a great hill, and on that was an ancient camp. It was what they call the "Dinas," the refuge camp of the Quantock side, which one can see from Glastonbury and all the Mendips.
A range of lofty hills, which I guessed to be the Mendips, bordered the whole skyline, and further north there lay a second chain in the blue distance. The glittering Avon wound its way over the country-side like a silver snake in a flower-bed.
Those are an island of the Old World, called now the Mendip Hills; and we are steaming along the great strait between the Mendips and the Welsh mountains, which once was coral reef, and is now the Severn sea; and by the time you have eaten your breakfast we shall steam in through a crack in that coral-reef; and you will see what you missed seeing when you went to Ireland, because you went on board at night.
Stoke, Rodney, a village prettily situated at the foot of the Mendips, 5 m. One of these that of Sir Thomas Rodney dates from the 15th cent.; the others are later. Stoke St Gregory, a parish 2 m. S. of Athelney Station. It has an interesting church, which, like that of its neighbour North Curry, is cruciform with a central octagonal tower. The rest of the building was reconstructed in Perp. times.
But the Cheddar gorge, though majestic and awe-inspiring, is not of great extent. Soon the valley widened, the road took longer sweeps to round each frowning buttress, and at last emerged, with a quality of inanimate breathlessness, on to the bleak and desolate tableland of the Mendips.
The detached hills in their neighbourhood are doubtless only the remnants of an oolitic covering which once completely enveloped them. A noteworthy feature of the Mendips, but one shared by other limestone formations, is the number of caverns and "swallet holes" with which they abound.
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