ON THE PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET. 3 



contrast* too far. Neither of tliese towers is very con- 

 spicuous for loftiness ; tliey rise but two stages above the 

 roof, and the treatment of the lower stage in each has 

 much boldness and originality. Kingsbury Episcopi is a 

 third noble tower, of much the same proportion and 

 general treatment. It resembles Huish in its foliated bands 

 and in its battlement, but the latter has still less connexion 

 with the parts beneath, owing to the distance at which the 

 piunacles crowning the buttresses are set from the angles. 

 Tliis gives the belfry-stage a look of too great hardness 

 and squareness. Mark, Long Sutton, and Langport, are 

 also towers of the same class ; handsome steeples, and 

 which, out of Somerset, would command great admiration, 

 but immeasurably inferior to the three magnificent stnic- 

 tures which I have just been describing. 



Of the Bristol type, I before stated that though its 

 ideal excellence is greater, its actual specimens are com- 

 monly of inferior merit to the Taunton class. I have not 

 foimd this remark belied in my present travels. Monta- 

 cute is the best tower of this klud that I saw, but no one 

 would compare it to Huish or Kingsbury, though it has 

 borrowed from them their characteristic bands of foliation. 

 The turret is at the north-west angle, so that it Stands 

 out very boldly and promiuently ; it lacks, however, the 

 small sph-elet common nearer Bristol. Of Bleadon I 

 spoke somewhat disparagingly, on the strength of an 

 engraving which 1 find was far from doing it justice. It 

 is not a first rate tower, but is still a bold and handsome 

 structure ; the turret is crowned with a spirelet ; and we 

 may remark the diagonal buttresses, unusual in Somerset, 

 except in much smaller towers. Of these last, Hut ton is 

 a very plcasing example, closcly resembliug its neighbour 



* See History of Architecture, p. 348—50. 



