These level lands of highly productive meadows, lying out of the beaten track, below the greatly frequented high road that runs out of Bridgwater to Nether Stowey, and so on along the ridge to Holford and West Quantoxhead, are much more extensive than a casual glance at the map would convey. They are at one point over five miles across. The centre of this district is Stogursey, which is, as it were, a kind of capital, if a large agricultural village may be thus dignified. Stogursey is a considerable village, taking the second half of its name from the de Courcy family, who once owned it, but the thick speech of Somerset rendered the place-name into “Stogursey” so long ago that even maps have adopted the debased form; some, however, inserting a small (Stoke Courcy) in brackets, under the generally accepted form. The visitor will at the same time notice, in the title of the local parish magazine, that efforts are being made by the clergy to restore the original name. The church was built by those old Norman lords, but the family died out so very long ago, that no memorials of them remain in it; and the net result of all their ancient state and glory is—a name! It is a large and fine church, in the Norman and Transitional Norman styles; consisting of a large and lofty nave without aisles, a central tower, north and south transepts, and deep chancel. The clustered shafts supporting the central tower have elaborately sculptured Norman capitals of a distinctly Byzantine character. A variant of the place-name is seen on a monument to one Peregrine Palmer, where it appears as “Stoke Curcy.” The Palmer family is seen, on another monument, revelling in a pun beneath the Palmer coat of arms: in this wise, “Palma virtuti.” [Illustration: STOLFORD.] But the Verney aisle of this beautiful church contains more interesting memorials than those of Palmers; notably two altar-tombs with effigies of the Verneys of Fairfield. The earliest is that of Sir Ralph Verney, 1352. The other, that of Sir John Verney, who died in 1461, is of very beautiful workmanship, and displays, among other shields of arms, the punning device of the family: three ferns—“verns,” as a rural Somerset man would say, in that famous “Zummerzet” doric that is not yet wholly extinct.