These remnants are all that survive of a house founded here in 1232 by the widow of William Longsword, for the accommodation of a settlement of Carthusians; and it is worth noticing that of the Carthusian houses in England, which never numbered more than nine, Somerset had two.  The ruins, which are very meagre, consist of two groups of buildings. (1) One is a three-storeyed structure, containing on basement a vaulted, chapel-like chamber, lighted by side lancets and a terminal triplet, and possessing a large piscina and an aumbry.  This is generally but quite erroneously described as the “chapter-house.”  It may have been the fratry.  On the first floor is another vaulted chamber, supposed to have been the library.  It communicated at the end with a pigeon-cote, and is reached by a good stone staircase, which also gives access to a loft above.  On the L. of the passage leading to the library will also be noticed a small room lighted by a square-headed window. (2) The second, in the stable-yard of the adjoining manor house, is the refectory, a good, vaulted apartment, with a row of octagonal columns down the centre.  At the W. end it opens into the kitchen, in which will be discovered a fireplace.  Of the priory church, which abutted on the N. wall of the so-called “chapter house,” nothing is left but a single trefoiled piscina and one of the vaulting shafts.  The buildings have evidently been freely used as a quarry for the erection of the neighbouring manor house.  In a dingle in the adjoining field is a stone-faced, pointed archway, tunnelling the road.  The parish church is an unattractive, ivy-clad building near the village. Hinton House (J.C.  Foxcroft) is a modern mansion, with a fine open green in front of it.

Hinton St George, a clean and attractive village equidistant (4 m.) from Crewkerne and Ilminster.  It possesses a very fine cross, having on one face a representation of St John Baptist, which was originally flanked by smaller figures.  The shaft has been barbarously crowned with a sundial and large ball.  The church has a dignified tower with numerous pinnacles, and a pierced, embattled parapet.  The W. front has a single large window which breaks the string course (cp.  Shepton Beauchamp and Norton-sub-Hamdon).  The S. porch has a ribbed and panelled roof and numerous niches.  The interior of the church is not very interesting, apart from the tombs and monuments of the Pouletts, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries.  Most are in a large N. chapel, but there is one between the chapel and the chancel, and another in front of the family pew.  The font is carved with shields bearing alternately a cross and the Poulett arms.  There is a piscina in the chancel. Hinton House, the mansion of Countess Poulett, in the neighbouring park, has portions dating from the time of the first Sir Amyas Poulett (d. 1537), but the rest is later.  It has a fine collection of pictures.

Holcombe, a colliery village 3-1/2 m.  S. of Radstock.  It has a small modern church; but an old church, now disused, lies in a dingle in some fields a mile away from the village.  This possesses a good Norm.  S. doorway, with a curious inverted inscription scratched on one of the capitals.  The careless rebuilding of the columns shows that it is not in its original position.