Smuggling was the chief occupation of Porlock and its surroundings in Southey’s time. The lonely beach of huge pebbles that stretches between Porlock Weir and Bossington, with low-lying, marshy meadows giving upon it, was most frequently the scene of goods being landed secretly and thence dispersed into the surrounding country. The Revenue officials knew so well that smuggling was carried on largely that it behoved the “free-traders” to be at especial pains to baffle them. Some of their ingeniously constructed hiding-holes have not been unearthed until comparatively recent years. Thus, in so unlikely a situation as the middle of a field, a smugglers’ store-chamber was found in course of ploughing, between Porlock and Bossington. Again, it was left to modern times for a smugglers’ hiding-hole in the picturesque farmhouse of Higher Doverhay to be discovered. This ingenious place of concealment for contraband goods had been constructed by the simple process of building a false outer wall parallel with the real wall of the farmhouse, leaving a narrow space between. When discovered the shelves with which this recess was fitted, for the reception of spirit-kegs, were still there; but the spirits themselves had departed. The church of Porlock, dedicated to St. Dubritius, is generally regarded by visitors as an architectural joke. It is the curiously truncated shingled broach spire that produces this derogatory view. It is understood that the local clergy, seriously exercised in their minds about this attitude of unseemly mirth, would greatly like to rebuild tower and spire. But guidebooks and visitors alike, placing such stress upon this alleged grotesqueness, are quite wrong. The spire, as it is, has that all-too-rare thing, character, and it is a joy to the artist, and something on which visitors can exercise their wits. In short, Porlock would be a good deal less than its old self were it abolished. With the huge and dilapidated churchyard yew, and the tall neighbouring cross, the old church, as a whole, forms a striking _motif_ for a sketch. [Illustration: PORLOCK CHURCH.] The most notable feature of the interior is the noble altar-tomb of the fourth Baron Harington of Aldingham, and his wife, Elizabeth Courtenay, daughter of the Earl of Devon, who died respectively in 1417 and 1472. She married, secondly, Lord Bonvile, of Chewton, but chose to lie here; and here, in finely sculptured effigies, they are represented, the noble helmeted and in complete armour, and his lady with tall mitre headdress and coronet.