Chief among the town celebrations is that of the Hobby Horse, surviving from a remote antiquity. It takes place annually, on the first three days of May, and assumes the shape of a gaudily caparisoned What-is-It, escorted by fishermen and fisher-lads, playing on drum and concertina, with an obbligato of money-box rattling. We have styled the Hobby Horse as above for the sufficient reason that it is not only utterly unlike anything equine, but with an equal conclusiveness unlike anything else on earth; being just a draped framework, hung with gaily coloured ribbons, from the midst of which rises a something intended for a capped head. The human mechanism that actuates this affair may be guessed at from the great boots that ever and again are to be seen protruding from it.
ROOD-LOFT TURRET, MINEHEAD.
This is a survival of more simple times, and seems a little out of the picture in the sophisticated streets of modern Minehead. Rural customs, outside the radius of the town, wear a more natural appearance.
The ancient church of Minehead, the parish church of St. Michael, stands as do most churches dedicated to that saint, on a hilly site. It is in Upper Town, half way up North Hill, and quite remote, thanks be, from the recent developments down below. Here the ancient white-faced cottages remain, and the steep steps that form the road, and here you feel that you are come again into the Somerset of pre-railway times. The church is chiefly of the Perpendicular period. On the tower, rather too high for their details to be easily made out without the aid of glasses, are sculptured panels representing St. Michael weighing souls, with the Virgin Mary on one side and the Devil on the other contending for possession, by pressing down the beam of the scales; and a group of God the Father, holding a crucified Christ. A rich projecting bay filled with windows forms an unusual feature of the south side of the church. It is the staircase turret of the rood screen, and was designed in this fashion and filled with windows, it is said, for the purpose of showing a light at night-time for fishermen making the harbour. No beacon is shown now, but it is stated that fishermen still speak of “picking up the church lights” as they make their way home. At the same time, it is only right to say that, from personal observation, it seems impossible that the windows or the turret could ever have been visible from the sea. They look out rather in a landward direction, if anything, towards Dunster. But on the opposite side of the church there remains an inscription in Old English characters, somewhat decayed, by which it is evident that the well-being of the neighbourhood was near the hearts of these church folk:
We . prey . to . John . and M(ary)
send . our . neyburs . safte.
THE CLOCK JACK, MINEHEAD CHURCH.
The interior of the church is very fine, with the usual rich rood-screen we come to expect in these parts. It is possible to ascend the staircase-turret and walk along the site of the rood-loft, which was indeed until 1886, when the church was restored, occupied during service by school-children. Here is preserved a queer little clock-jack figure, removed from the tower. The entrance to the chapel of St. Lawrence from the chancel is by an archway curiously framed in wood, instead of stone. Various relics, in the shape of old books and Bibles, a carved-oak late fifteenth-century chest, and some brasses of the Quirke family (among whom one notices the oddly named “Izott,” wife of John Quirke, mariner, 1724) reward the visitor.