SOMEESETSHIEE. 119 



A small portion of the east of the county is drained by the Leddon, which 

 flows into the Severn at Gloucester. Ledbury is the chief town on its banks, 

 and Eastnor Castle, near it, contains a valuable collection of paintings. 



Somersetshire is a maritime county, bounded on the north and north-west 

 by the Bristol Channel, and drained by the Avon (which divides it from 

 Gloucestershire), the Axe, Brue, and Parrot. An oolitic upland of irregular 

 configuration separates the county from Dorset and Wiltshire, and coalesces near 

 Bath with the Cotswold Hills. Two spurs jut out from this elevated tract 

 towards the Bristol Channel, forming the Mendip and Polden Hills. The former 

 are composed of mountain limestone and Devonian sandstone, have steep sides 

 and flat tops, and contain veins of lead and copper, now nearly exhausted. 

 They separate the valley of the Avon, a portion of which is occupied by the 

 Bristol coal bed, from the low marshes intersected by the river Brue. This 

 " Brue Level " contains peat, but parts of it are of exceeding fertility, and dairy- 

 farming is successfully carried on in it. The Polden Hills separate this lowland 

 from the more diversified valley of the Parret, which is rich in pasture-grounds, 

 and yields an abundance of butter and cheese. 



The western portion of the county is covered for the most part with wild and 

 barren hills, abounding in bogs and moorland ; but these are intersected by the 

 rich and picturesque valley of Taunton Deane, one of the most fruitful districts of 

 England. On the north this " vale " is sheltered by the Quantock Hills (1,270 feet 

 high), the Brendon Hills, and Exmoor (Dunkerry Beacon, 1,706 feet), which 

 separate it from the Bristol Channel ; on the south the Blackdown Hills, crowned 

 by a monument erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington, divide it from 

 Devonshire. 



Somersetshire has woollen, silk, and other factories : coal and a little iron ore 

 are raised, but the wealth of the county is principally produced by agriculture, 

 dairy-farming, and the rearing of cattle and sheep. Cheddar cheese is one of the 

 most highly appreciated of its productions. 



Bath, the largest town of Somersetshire, but not its county town, is situated in the 

 beautiful valley of the Avon, and on the hills surrounding it, only a short distance 

 below the gorge which the river runs through on its course to the plain. The fine 

 abbey church, the pump-rooms, the baths, and the business part of the city occupy 

 the valley, whilst on the hill-slopes terraces and crescents of handsome houses rise 

 tier above tier. We perceive at once that we have entered one of those watering- 

 places where the number of pleasure- seekers is greater than that of the invalids. 

 As early as the time of the Romans these Aquce Suits were much frequented, and 

 carved stones, showing Minerva in association with the British divinity Sulis, have 

 been discovered. But Bath is no longer the " Queen of all the Spas in the World," 

 to which position the genius of two men. Wood, the architect, and " Beau " Nash, the 

 master of ceremonies, had raised it in the eighteenth century. The monumental 

 buildings of that age have a forsaken look, and fashionable crowds no longer file 

 through their colonnades and the grounds which surround them. Cheltenham, 

 Malvern, and the seaside towns exercise a stronger attraction upon wealthy 



