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.
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