PORTISHEAD, a small town with a population of 2544, situated on the Bristol Channel, 11-1/2 m.  W. from Bristol and 8 from Clifton Suspension Bridge.  It is connected with the city by a G.W.R. branch line, of which it is the terminus.  Portishead makes a successful attempt to combine business with pleasure.  It has a biggish dock and some large grain warehouses, and is a flourishing little port.  It is now awaking to its possibilities as a watering-place.  Its chief attraction is a wooded promontory rising behind the docks.  Round this is cut an excellent road, which finally ends in a queer little attempt at a promenade.  The “Point” has figured in history, for the possession of a fort upon it was contested by the Royalist and Roundhead forces in the Civil War.  The church is in the middle of the old village, which lies back from the sea.  It has a stately Perp. tower crowned with a spirelet.  The interior is unreformed and disappointing.  Note (1) music gallery above S. porch, (2) Norm. font, (3) curious arch in N. aisle, (4) sculptured heads built into chancel wall, perhaps removed from original position as suspenders of Lenten veil (cp.  Orchardleigh), (5) pulpit reached through S. wall.  Near the church is an ancient manor house with an Elizabethan turret.  Portishead possesses a fine new Naval College, built to replace the old training-ship Formidable.  Nightingale Valley is a favourite walk.

Preston Plucknett, a village 1-1/2 m.  W. of Yeovil.  Its church is not particularly interesting, the ancient features being disguised by recent restorations.  The body of the building is thought to be late Dec., the tower Perp.  Note (1) piscina in S. transept or chapel, (2) small doorway in N. transept, which probably once led to the rood-loft, but now affords access to the pulpit.  Hard by is a fine tithe barn with finials on the gables, and a 15th-cent. house with a most picturesque porch and panelled octagonal chimney.

Priddy, a lonely village on the top of the W. Mendips, 5 m.  N.N.W. of Wells.  It enjoys a certain celebrity as one of the bleakest and most remote spots in Somerset.  Though some considerable distance from Cheddar, it is generally regarded as part of the Cheddar entourage.  Nowhere can the characteristic scenery of the Mendips, with its moors, mines, and swallets, be sampled to better advantage.  Priddy, ever since Roman times, has been the centre of the Mendip mining area (cp. p. 11), and wild tales used to be told of the Priddy “groovers.”  Lead and zinc ores are still worked in the locality.  The village surrounds a large, three-cornered green, which was once the scene of a considerable fair.  The church stands about a stone’s-throw away on rising ground.  It is a Perp. building of irregular design and rough workmanship.  It has a good pillared stoup in the porch, a Jacobean screen, and fragments of a stone pulpit.  In the neighbourhood are two groups of barrows.