door (note stoup).  The S. porch is an elaborate Perp. structure, beautifully finished and vaulted (cp.  Mells).  Within the church is a piscina in S. transept, and a 17th-cent. brass near the vestry door.  In the churchyard opposite the N. porch is a notable sanctuary cross, bearing the instruments of the Passion (cp.  W. Pennard).  A few paces down the Evercreech road is one of the large tithe barns once belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury (cp.  Pilton).

Dowlish Wake, a village at the bottom of a slight declivity 2 m.  S.E. of Ilminster.  It owes the second part of its name to the family of Wake, the last male representative of which died in 1348.  The church is a modern antique, with a central tower partly original (15th cent.).  The N. chapel is also original, and contains some interesting monuments.  These are (1) serpentine tomb with bust of Captain Speke the African traveller, (2) effigy of a lady (temp. Edward I.), under a recessed cinquefoiled canopy, the cusps of which are worked up into faces, (3) altar-tomb, with effigies of a knight (in plate armour) and a lady—­believed to be John Speke (d. 1442) and his wife, (4) small brass on floor to George and Elizabeth Speke (1528).  Close by is a rude font, probably early Norm.  It was brought here from West Dowlish as the only remains of a church which existed there prior to 1700.

Downhead, a straggling village 2-1/2 m.  N.E. of Cranmore Station.  The church is small and devoid of interest.  It has been “restored” regardless of style.

Downside, a scattered parish without a village 1/2 m.  S.W. of Chilcompton station (S. & D.).  The church is an ugly little structure, pseudo-E.E., built in 1837.  A quarter of a mile beyond the church in a field on the right are the “fairy slats.”  Here is a crescent-shaped British camp overlooking a picturesque ravine.  The precipitous nature of the ground on the S. side forms a natural defence and accounts for the incompleteness of the rampart The “slats” are merely slight slits in the ground caused by the slipping of the unsupported strata.  Within the parish, but contiguous to the village of Stratton, is Downside Abbey, a modern settlement of Benedictine monks, who, after their expulsion from Douai during the French Revolution, finally found a home here in 1814.  The Abbey Church is a building of noble dimensions but somewhat lacking in symmetry.  It is still incomplete.  The present block consists of choir, transepts, a multitude of chapels, and an unfinished tower.  The choir is rather severe in style, but the chapels are very elaborate.  Attached to the abbey is a large and well-equipped college for boys.

Draycott, a hamlet 4 m.  E.S.E. of Axbridge, with a modern church (note font) and a station that serves Rodney Stoke.  The locality possesses some quarries of a hard kind of conglomerate, capable of a high polish.

Drayton, a village 2 m.  S. of Langport.  The church has been restored, and the chief feature of interest connected with it is the fine cross in the churchyard, with a figure on the shaft of St Michael slaying the Dragon.