w's "half
inch" is a great help in this matter.

From Lyme the walk westwards by the cliff is, of course, the most
beautiful way. Our present route, by the high road, passes between
Rousdon, _the_ great house of the neighbourhood, and Combpyne, where
there is a station, the only one between Lyme and Axminster. This is a
pleasant place, lost between hills, and quite out of sight from the
railway. It has a church, built about 1250, with a gabled tower and
with a hagioscope in the chancel. The communion plate dates from
before the Reformation and is said to have been in constant use for
more than four hundred years. In the thirteenth century a convent
stood here; part of the buildings are now a farmhouse, but the
villagers still point out the "Nuns' Walk" close by. A series of
lonely and delightful lanes, difficult to follow without a good map
(directions given by a rustic require a super-brain to remember their
intricate details), lead down to the high road just short of the
bridge over the Axe. Here a turn to the right leads to picturesque old
Axmouth. The houses climb up a narrow combe down which tumbles a
bright stream from the side of Hawksdown, the hill which rises to the
north-east and is crowned by an ancient encampment. The church was
originally Norman, but only the north door and south aisle remain of
this period. In the chancel, which is in the Decorated style, is the
effigy of a priest within a recess, and in a chantry chapel a monument
to Lady Erle of Bindon. The curious wall paintings were discovered
during the restoration of the church some years ago. An old standard
measure for corn called the "Lord's Measure" is kept in a recess in
the churchyard wall. Turning to the left from the church are some
ancient cottages. On one of the chimneys will be seen the date 1570
and a motto: "God giveth all." Not far away is the entrance to
Stedcombe, a house designed by Inigo Jones, which replaced an older
building destroyed in the Civil War. Bindon, the home of Sir Walter
Erle, a famous officer of the Parliamentary army, is about a mile from
the village in the direction of the Landslip. It is a fine
sixteenth-century mansion, now a farmhouse, a chapel attached to which
is more than a hundred years older than the original building.

[Illustration: AXMOUTH FROM THE RAILWAY.]

A road by the east bank of the Axe leads in a mile to Seaton, which is
at the actual Axe mouth. This is a town almost without a history,
althoug