We turn away from the Roman road by a lane that climbs a long hill between high hedges, and quickly runs down again. Below us, in a fold of the low hills, lies Crewkerne.
Joshua Sprigge, in his enchanting history, “compiled for the Publique good, and to be sold at the Parot in Paul’s Churchyard,” describes how the army of the Parliament came to Crookhorn by “ill and narrow” ways in a very hot season, “the foot weary with their long and tedious march, the carriage-horses tyred out;” and how, only an hour later, they left it again with all their weariness forgotten. “They leapt for joy that they were like to be engaged.” As they were following the enemy to Petherton it was probably by this very road that they marched away, probably on this very road that Fairfax and Cromwell came riding side by side.
We need not stay in Crewkerne even so long as they, for there is nothing to be seen except the church. There is hardly a church in Somerset that is not worth seeing, either for its beauty or its interest; but the church here is more than ordinarily stately. Like all the rest it is built of the stone whose grey and yellow tints make even the simplest cottage in Somerset a lovely thing, and add greatly to the beauty of this elaborate church, with its crockets and statues and niches, its embattled turrets and parapet, and all its intricate gargoyles. In an angle of the south transept is a curious recess such as I have never seen elsewhere, with a canopy and a stone seat. It is said to have been a hermit’s cell; but a hermit who frequented the outer wall of a large church must have been very fond of society.
Here we strike the London and Exeter road, and therefore the surface, which has hitherto been indifferent at best and at worst very bad, becomes almost perfect. As we climb the long hill of St. Rayne to the height that is ominously known as Windwhistle, the scenery grows very lovely: the breezy road passes along a ridge, a wide park skirts the wayside, and to right and left the landscape sweeps away into the distance. Indeed, I have heard that at one point near Windwhistle inn—at the fourth milestone from Chard—it is possible on a clear day to catch a glimpse of the two seas, to north and south. A run of two miles on an easy downward gradient takes us to the “prepared” road that leads into the long, wide, sloping street of Chard; then a steep climb lifts us to the hilltops again; and a few minutes later we glide down into the soft green woods of Devon.