windows. A glorious walk could be
taken eastwards by lonely little Batcombe with its marvellous legends
of "Conjuring Minterne," whose grave is in the churchyard. Thence the
solitary hill-way goes by the mysterious stone called "Cross in Hand"
along the tops of the hills past High Stoy (860 feet), an outstanding
bastion, Ridge Hill and Buckland Newton.

[Illustration: BATCOMBE.]

The short five miles of road from Yeovil to Sherborne passes over the
curiously named Babylon Hill. A proposal was made at an Academy dinner
a short time ago to label the small towns and villages of Britain with
artistic signs giving the name of the place and denoting pictorially
or otherwise its leading characteristic. The idea is a good one,
though it is capable of being carried to extreme lengths and abused.
In wandering over the English countryside one is often at a loss, even
with a good map in the pocket, to know the name of the hamlet or
village one is entering. It is insulting to the villager and
humiliating to oneself to ask "What place is this?" The well-known
black and yellow signs of the Automobile Association label such
villages as stand on a high road. But the obscure by-way hamlet,
perhaps of more interest, is quite incognito. However, Babylon Hill is
clearly marked on the map if not on the roadside, and we proceed
through a pleasant country quite unlike the district we have just
traversed and partaking more of the character of Leicester and the
"Loamshire" of the novelist than of Somerset. The beautiful Abbey
Church of Sherborne, the town of the "Scir bourn" or Yeo, is not well
seen from the approach on the west, for we are on the wrong side of
the long slope on which it is built. The town itself is attractive and
pleasant, and has several old and beautiful houses to delight the
traveller, but every other interest is dwarfed by its magnificent
Abbey. Originally founded as the Cathedral of the see of Sherborne in
705, it had as its first bishop the great and learned Aldhelm. At this
time the then city was the capital of the new western extension of
Wessex and an important and strategic stronghold in the long and
bitter struggle with the Danes. The earlier bishops were not only
priests but soldiers, and seem to have acquitted themselves well as
leaders in battle and generals in council in the many engagements that
took place between the Channel and the Severn. More than one fell
fighting and one, Bishop Ealhstan, totally defeat