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. At Cothelstone to the north, approached by a romantic winding road embosomed in lofty beech trees which dip suddenly down into a picturesque dell, the church and manor-house nestle cosily together, surrounded by hills and hanging woods. It is a typical Jacobean manor-house of stone, with ball-surmounted gables and heavy mullioned windows, approached from the road through an imposing archway, with a gatehouse beyond containing curious little niches and windows. In the gardens an old banqueting-room and ruined summer-house complete the picturesque group of buildings. The church has some fine tombs. One of the lords of the earlier manor-house reclines full length in Edwardian armour, his gauntleted hands bearing a remarkable resemblance to a pair of boxing-gloves. A descendant, Sir John Stawel, who fought valiantly for Charles in the Civil War, lies also in the church. For his loyalty his house was ruined and his estate sold by the Parliament, but his son was made a peer by the Merry Monarch in acknowledgment of his father's services. "The Lodge," an old landmark at Cothelstone, can boast a view of no less than fourteen counties, and from a gap in the Blackdown Hills, Halsdown by Exeter may be seen, while close at hand Will's Neck looms dark against the sky. [Illustration: CROWCOMBE.] [Illustration: OLD HOUSE, CROWCOMBE.]