[Pg 149]
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.