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.
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