The tall, ugly masonry retaining-wall that fringes the hollow road for a long distance as you come uphill from East to West Quantoxhead, is that of St. Audries, the park of Sir Alexander Acland Hood. Where this ends, on the hilltop, the lovely park, sloping down to the seashore, is disclosed, like a dream of beauty. West Quantoxhead and St. Audries are convertible terms, the parish church being dedicated to St. Etheldreda, popularly known in mediæval times as “St. Audrey.” The mansion in the park, the rectory, the post-office, and a few scattered cottages constitute all the village. The church itself is modern, having been built by Sir Peregrine Acland Hood in 1857. It is far better, architecturally, than the mere date of it would suggest; doubtless because the architect relied more upon the traditional local style than on his own initiative. Although having stood for over half a century, the church looks astonishingly new. The mansion itself, a happy combination of stateliness and domestic comfort, and built of red brick and stone, is glimpsed romantically between the fine clumps of trees with which the park is studded; and in a cleft you note the blue sea—for the Severn Sea is not so muddy and so dun-coloured under sunny conditions as some would have us suppose. Down on the beach, where a waterfall plunges boldly over the cliffs of curiously stratified rock, the Somerset coast proves itself again to be more picturesque than it is generally allowed to be. The Devon and Somerset staghounds sometimes meet on the lawn, in front of St. Audries House, as the Quantock pack were used to do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVI WILLITON—ST. DECUMAN’S AND THE WYNDHAMS—WATCHET LEAVING St. Audries, one also leaves the Quantocks behind, coming downhill into Williton, a place now by way of being a little town, with a railway station, a cattle market, a Union Workhouse, resembling the residence of some more than usually wealthy peer, a Petty Sessions Court, and a police station.