[Illustration:  MELLS VILLAGE]

Mendips, The, a chain of hills some 25 m. long, running in a straight line across the county in a N.W. direction from Frome to the Channel.  On its S.W. face the ridge drops abruptly into the plain, but the opposite side gradually shelves away in a series of irregular undulations, though the descent becomes sharper as the hills approach the coast.  Viewed from the sea-board the outline of the chain is on either side sharply defined, and forms a prominent and shapely feature in the landscape.  From the low-lying central flats of the county the Mendips have a quite fictitious impressiveness.  Nowhere does their altitude reach 1100 ft., and their ridge-like summit is nothing but an extended plateau, in places from 2 to 3 m. wide.  They have, however, even on the top a certain picturesqueness, for the undulating tableland is relieved by copses, and diversified by little wooded “bottoms,” scooped out by prehistoric torrents.  Nearer the sea the uplands become more desolate, the “bottoms” are replaced by rocky combes, like the gorges at Cheddar and Burrington; villages become less frequent; and traces of discarded mines give a weirdness to the solitude.  The moors are, however, healthy, and nowhere lacking in interest.  Geologically the structure of the Mendips is simple.  A core of old red sandstone, which occasionally crops out at the surface, and through which in one spot, near Downhead, a vein of igneous rock has forced its way, is thickly coated with a crust of mountain limestone.  The once superincumbent coal-measures are huddled together on one side in a confused heap near Radstock, and on the other are probably buried beneath the Glastonbury marshes.  The detached hills in their neighbourhood are doubtless only the remnants of an oolitic covering which once completely enveloped them.  A noteworthy feature of the Mendips, but one shared by other limestone formations, is the number of caverns and “swallet holes” with which they abound.  Of the former the Cheddar Caves and Wookey Hole are the most remarkable; and a good example of the latter is the Devil’s Punch Bowl near E. Harptree.  The chief antiquities consist of the old Roman lead-mines and an amphitheatre near Priddy, the old Roman road linking Uphill with Old Sarum, and a few camps, such as those at Masbury and Burrington.  The hills are fairly uniform in height, the chief prominences being Beacon Hill (near Shepton), Masbury Ring, and Blackdown (1067 ft.).  A fairly good road traverses the range from Frome to Cheddar or Burrington; and a ramble taken anywhere along its length will repay the pedestrian.

Merriott, 2 m.  N. of Crewkerne, is partly, occupied, like the neighbouring town, in the manufacture of sail-cloth.  The church, in the main Perp., has been restored, but retains its massive tower, which is singularly plain, with a pinnacled turret in the middle of the S. face.  The tower arch looks like E.E., and there is a fine E.E. (restored) piscina in the chancel.  The S. entry has some intricate carving above it, and there are some quaint figures on a stone inserted over the vestry door.