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Updated: May 29, 2025
The lover of Wordsworth who follows its deep umbrageous drive to the point where the house, the park around it, and the Quantocks above them suddenly break upon the view, sees to-day very much what Wordsworth's visitors saw when they trudged up from Stowey to commune with him in 1797.
Quantocks, The, a range of hills forming the W. boundary of the spacious plain which occupies the centre of the county. Geologically, they belong to the Devonian series of rocks. Their tops are covered with bracken, heather, scrub oak, and quantities of whortle berries, the ripening of the last marking the beginning of the summer holidays for the village children, who then go "whorting."
But these hills were easier than ours, for heather was none, and the loose stones that trouble us on Mendips and Quantocks were not to be seen. It was fair grass land mostly. So I let my horse go, and in a little while had forgotten aught but the sheer joy of the pace, and the cry of the great hounds, and the full delight of such a run as one dreams of. Whereby I have little more to tell thereof.
As I was not with them, they judged that I had escaped in some way, but they lost the track of the feet in the woodlands, and so rode back to Owen in all haste. Then was a great gathering of men for the hunting of the outlaws, for it would take a small army to search the wild hills and woodlands of the Quantocks to any effect.
If one came from the sea, one must land at Watchet, and then win a path across the Quantocks, and there is the ancient camp of Dowsborough to block the way; or else put into the Parret, and there, at the first landing place, where they say that Joseph of Arimathaea landed, bearing the holy thorn staff in his hand, is the strong hill fort of Combwich, old as the days of that Joseph, or maybe older.
The Wellington Monument, a conspicuous landmark on the summit of one of the Blackdowns, is nearly 3 m. S. of the town. It is a triangular column, erected by public subscription to commemorate the Iron Duke, and was originally intended to be surmounted by his statue. The site commands an extensive prospect in the direction of the Quantocks, Brendons, and Exmoor.
The level sunbeams crept through the trees and made everything very fresh and fair, and a little light frost hung over twigs and young fern fronds everywhere, so that I seemed in the land of fairy instead of the Quantocks.
The very diversified character of Somerset makes it the home of a large variety of birds, the Quantocks and Exmoor sheltering many of the predatory kinds, the long coast-line attracting numerous seafowl, and the fenny country of the centre affording a feeding ground for the different kinds of waders.
He began washing his brushes. "And what was your news?" he said. She got up from her seat. "I forgot all about it, with talking of the Quantocks' secret," she said. "That just shows you: I completely forgot, Georgie. I've just accepted an offer to sing in America, a four months' engagement, at fifty thousand million pounds a night. A penny less, and I wouldn't have gone. But I really can't refuse.
But a shift of wind had come, and they were yet over on the Welsh coast, waiting for the tide to enable them to come down on us. By that time a fire burned on the highest spur of the Quantocks to tell us that Odda was there, and at once another was lit on the Combwich fort to bring him to us, for it seemed certain that here we must fight the first battle of Alfred's great struggle.
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