ON THE PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET. 23 



nothing of its present miserable and disgraceftil condition, 

 there is something unsatisfactory in its original design. In so 

 large a church, and that too one connected with a conventual 

 establishment, we should certainly have looked for some 

 approach to the architectural character of a minster 

 whereas it has decidedly less of that mysterious efFect than 

 either Crewkerne or Uminster, There is nothing about it 

 different from an ordinary parish church, except the 

 enormous length of its westem limb. This was apparently 

 owing to the choir running considerably west of the tower; 

 the rood-screen remains two bays down the constructive 

 nave, and that this is its original position is shown by the 

 staircase turret. The whole church is an example of 

 opportunities thrown away ; there is neither clerestory nor 

 west front, and there is a general appearance of irregularity 

 about it hardly pleasing in so large a church. 



Ditcheat is its exact opposite ; all its four limbs Cluster 

 round a massive central tower with the most exemplary 

 regularity; the way in which the chancel is reduced to 

 uniformity I have already mentioned. It is a handsome 

 church, with a clerestory, and some approach to a west 

 front ; but it is rather spoüed by an enormously heavy 

 battlement running all round. 



Wedmore is a large and striking church, to some of whose 

 features I have already alluded. It is very iiTegular, but in 

 a different way fi-om Dunster. The latter has the in-egu- 

 larity of a small picturesque church on an exaggerated 

 Scale ; that of Wedmore is essentially the irregiüarity of a 

 large building. On the south side the appearance is most 

 Singular. The tall and somewhat bare central tower rises 

 from among a mass of buildings which seem to haveno sort of 

 connexion with each other. Some rather curiously arranged 

 chapels and sacristies Cluster around the chancel, but both 



