Yet, with all these adjuncts of an up-to-date civilisation, Williton does not enjoy the distinction of being a real, original, independent parish. It stands in the parish of St. Decuman’s, a church yonder on the hillside, over a mile away, near Watchet: the peculiar humour of the thing being that St. Decuman’s, save for a few rustic cottages close by, stands lonely, while Watchet and Williton are populous places. Thus we observe here the engaging paradox, outraging all the problems of Euclid, of the larger being contained in the smaller. At the same time, it must be allowed that the “chapel-of-ease” at Williton, however inferior ecclesiastically and architecturally to St. Decuman’s, is at any rate of a respectable antiquity. It originated in a chantry chapel founded by Robert FitzUrse, brother of that Reginald who bore his share in the murder of Thomas à Becket. In a district such as this, where churchyard and wayside crosses, more or less dilapidated, are common-places, it seems hardly worth while to note that the base of an ancient cross stands at the east end of Williton church, or that fragments of two others stand in front of that old white-faced coaching inn, the “Egremont Hotel,” one of them made to support a gaslamp which itself has been put out of action by effluxion of time. St. Decuman’s, the parish church of Watchet, stands fully half a mile away from the little town, inland, within sight of Williton, on a conspicuous knoll. St. Decuman, to whom the church is dedicated, was one of those wonderful West Country saints for whom, as for Napoleon, the word “impossible” did not exist. He flourished at the close of the seventh century and the opening of the eighth, and came originally from South Wales, as a missionary to the heathen of Somerset. Crossing the sea on a hurdle, or on his cloak, according to the conflicting accounts given, he established a hermit’s cell on this spot and subsisted chiefly on berries and the milk of a cow which came from nowhere in particular, especially for the purpose of sustaining the holy man. The heathen, however, resented the hermit’s presence, and seized and beheaded him here, fondly imagining they had thus given him his _quietus_. But they little knew the virile qualities of this hardy race of missioners who came from across Channel and wrought marvels all along these coasts of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. St. Decuman was beheaded, but that was by no means the end of him. He took up his head, washed it in a spring that gushed forth upon the spot (for he was a cleanly person for a hermit), and placed it again on his shoulders: probably remarking, in the manner of modern conjurors, “That’s how it’s done!” But of this we have no record. To convert the ungodly after this exhibition of his powers was easy. There would appear to have been no reason why so remarkable a man as this should ever have died, but he passed away at last, in A.D. 706. A grim little stone figure of him occupies a niche in the tower.