In Middle Street is the George Inn, an old half-timbered house, and,
opposite, the still older "Castle," said to have been a chantry house.
The Woborne Almshouses were founded about 1476, but no portion of the
early buildings remain.
One of the most delightful views in South Somerset is that from
Summerhouse Hill, about half a mile away; another, magnificent in its
extent, can be had from the Mudford road that runs in a north-easterly
direction. The great central plain is spread before one with distant
Glastonbury Tor on the horizon. The environs of Yeovil are delightful.
One of the best short excursions is to East Coker, the birthplace of
William Dampier, two miles to the south. The church and Court are
beautifully placed above the old village and a picturesque group of
almshouses line the upward way to them.
Five miles north of Yeovil on the Fosse Way, where a branch road
leaves the ancient Bath-Exeter highway for Dorchester, stands the old
Roman town of Ilchester, or Ivelchester. An unimportant one at that,
for the Romans made but little attempt to build in the wild and remote
country that was to be the home of an obscure Saxon tribe--the
Somersetas.
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