For to this complexion has Minehead come at last; development into a seaside resort. But a few years since, and here you had a scattered, unspoiled village. To-day, by favour of the Luttrells, who own the land, and because the railway is handy, the terminus station being, in fact, on the beach, the builder is walking, splay-footed, all over it, and hotels have arisen on the front, and there is a bandstand, there are seaside “entertainers,” and there are pickpockets among the crowds thus being “entertained”; with the result that numerous visitors have to remain in pawn at their lodgings until such time as they receive fresh supplies. This it is to be up-to-date! Among other up-to-date doings is the covering of the roads with asphalte, so that visitant motor-cars shall not stir up the dust; the result being that the roads so treated have an evilly dirty appearance and a worse stink. They look, and probably are, dangerous to health. The old scattered Quay Town, Lower Town, and Upper Town, with their time-honoured cob-walled, whitewashed cottages, are being surely enmeshed together in an upstart network of new roads and uncharacteristic villas that might be in suburban London, rather than in Somerset; and the queer old Custom House, built in like manner on the Quay, and a little larger than a tool-shed, has been wantonly destroyed to make an approach to a pleasure pier, built in an impossible situation, so that visitors are pleased not to go upon it. So much—and more than enough too—of modern Minehead. [Illustration: MINEHEAD.] History-books tell us of strange doings in the old town. Thus in 1265, on a Sunday, the wild Welsh, under one William of Berkeley, came across Channel very numerously and pillaged the surrounding country before a force could be despatched to deal with them. The reckoning was perhaps not a ready one, but it seems to have been complete; the Constable of Dunster, one Adam of Gurdon, meeting and defeating them and driving them and their captain into the sea, wherein those who had not perished by the sword were drowned. In olden times this was the seat of a not inconsiderable trade. Woollens were exported hence, and a large business was done in herrings sent to Mediterranean ports, which bought annually some 4,000 barrels. Hence the ancient armorial bearings of Minehead; a sailing ship and a woolpack. [Illustration: SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MANTEL, “LUTTRELL ARMS” INN.]