st tower is of great splendour and its nave of the stateliest
Perpendicular. The contrast of the chancel to the rest of the building
is more peculiar than pleasing. At the Dissolution the monks' choir
seems to have been allowed to fall into ruin, and the present
restoration was made in 1743 in a debased classic style. Effigies of
Sir Maurice Berkeley, Constable of the Tower (1585), and his wives are
in a recess. He became the owner of the abbey after the Dissolution. A
portion of a medieval cope is shown in the nave and two chained books
(Erasmus and Jewel). The ancient tomb at the west door is that of
Gilbert, first Abbot after the status of the Priory was raised (1510).
The small north tower, an uncommon feature, is a relic of the older
portion of the Priory, originally founded by William de Mohun in 1142.
All that remains of the conventual buildings are a columbarium or
stone dove-cote on a hillock just outside the town and the Abbey
Court-house on the south side of High Street. On the front will be
seen the arms of de Mohun and the initials of Prior Henton.

[Illustration: BRUTON BOW.]

Close by Bruton Bow, an extremely picturesque medieval bridge over the
Brue, is the school founded by Fitz-James, Bishop of London. It was
suppressed with the abbey and refounded by Edward VI. The Sexey
Hospital was established by a native of Bruton who was penniless when
he left the town and rose to be Auditor of the Household to Queen
Elizabeth and James I. The beautiful Hall-chapel is panelled in black
oak, and the buildings make a quaint and pleasing picture.

Castle Cary, nearly three miles west of Cole station, does not fulfil
the expectations raised by its name. Until 1890 the very site of the
castle had been lost. The lines of the keep are now marked by a row of
pillars in a meadow at the foot of Lodge Hill. A fortress of the
Lovells, it was attacked and taken by Stephen. Soon afterwards it
seems to have been dismantled or destroyed. The church is well placed
on an eminence but has been practically rebuilt and is of little
interest.

Ditcheat and Evercreech, respectively two and five miles to the north,
are beautiful and interesting places. The latter has a church with one
of the most glorious towers in Somerset, but here again we are leaving
our arbitrary boundary and wandering too far afield. The road from
Cary to Wincanton runs through Bratton Seymour and keeps to the summit
of a ridge of low hills, commanding here and