The Somerset Coast

by Charles G. Harper

This beautiful and interesting old place is generally to be seen by visitors on Saturdays, but not without a good many restrictions readily to be understood in an historic castle which is at the same time a residence. Thus, you are not entitled, by the purchase of a sixpenny ticket at the confectioner’s in the High Street, to wander at will through the beautifully wooded grounds. A guide meets strangers at the lodge-gates, and conducts them. It is not the ideal way, and one would fain linger awhile on the south terrace, by that fine lemon-tree which climbs the wall and brings its lavish crop of fruit to perfect ripeness in this soft climate; or would if possible dwell long upon the views in one direction and another; down upon the growing town of Minehead, or across to Blue Anchor and the Holms, set in mid-Channel, with fleeting glimpses of the Welsh mountains.

The great church of Dunster, whose choir was in ruins until Mr. Luttrell undertook its restoration, about 1856, contains tombs of the Luttrells and others, and a very fine rood-screen. It is quite in character with the legendary and often muddled character of local history in England that the altar-tomb and alabaster effigies of Sir Hugh Luttrell and his wife, 1428, the first Luttrells of Dunster, were until recent times always shown as those of Sir John and Lady Mohun.

A curious example of architectural adaptation is to be seen here, in a fifteenth-century enlargement of an Early English doorway, by which the jambs were cut back for some two-thirds of its height, leaving the upper part as before. This “shouldered” arch, as architects would technically style it, forms a striking object.

One of the finest views of Dunster church is that in which, looking from the south, you get the great tower rearing majestically above the churchyard, and in the foreground the ancient alcove in the churchyard wall, formerly the home of the stocks.

Some sweet chimes play from the old tower, at one, five and nine p.m., daily; with a change of tune for every day of the week. Sunday, “O, Rest in the Lord”; Monday, “Drink to Me only with Thine Eyes”; Tuesday, “Home, Sweet Home”; Wednesday, “Disposer Supreme”; Thursday, “The Blue Bells of Scotland”; Friday, “The old 113th Psalm”; and Saturday, “Hark, hark! my Soul.”

DUNSTER CHURCH, FROM THE SOUTH, SHOWING OLD ALCOVE IN
CHURCHYARD WALL FOR THE STOCKS.

Not many visitors climb to the belfry chamber of Dunster church: the wealth of interest in Dunster makes too great a demand upon their energies for every corner to be explored; and as a rule, the interior of one belfry is very like that of another. There are the usual pendant bell-ropes, a few chairs, two or three oil lamps with tin reflectors, and various notice-boards of the Incorporated Society of Bell-Ringers, setting forth the appalling number of “grandsire triples” and “bob-majors” rung by those misguided persons who are so deaf to music that they consider bell-ringing to be harmonious. Education cannot be yet very far advanced while the barbarism of ringing church-bells for an hour at a stretch can be permitted these few fanatics, to the discomfort of the many; and justice and consistency are outraged at the ringing of the perambulating muffin-man’s tinkling bell being held an illegal nuisance, while tons of heavy metal are permitted to be set in motion in church-towers, to the misery of villagers and townsfolk, who have, apparently, no legal remedy.

The bell-ringers take themselves with an absurd seriousness, which has not nowadays the least excuse. The exercise may have been accounted a useful and a pious one when bell-ringing was supposed to exorcise devils, or at the very least of it, to remind the faithful that the hour of prayer was come; but now that clerical advanced critics of the Scriptures themselves deny the existence of the Devil himself and all his imps, and impugn the inspired character of the Bible, and now that every one can afford a watch and ascertain the hour for himself, the greater part of the church bells in this country could be broken up and sold for old metal, to the profit of the church, and the joy of the laity.