It is probable that a hunting lodge used by the
Angevin kings once stood hereabouts, as this countryside was in their
time the great forest of the White Hart. The church is small and
over-restored, but it contains a few interesting brasses.
The main road soon forks, the right-hand branch winding over a
two-mile stretch of tableland and then dropping to Stalbridge. The
main route goes directly over Henstridge Down and descends the hill to
the large village of Henstridge on a main cross-country road and with
a station on the Somerset and Dorset Railway, making it a convenient
point from which to take two interesting side excursions--northwards
to the hill-country beyond Wincanton and south to the upper valley of
the Stour. The old Virginia Inn at the cross roads claims to be the
actual scene of the "quenching" of Sir Walter Raleigh. Henstridge
church is much restored, or rather, rebuilt, but still contains the
fine canopied altar tomb of William Carent and his wife.
Proceeding northwards first we may take the road by Templecombe that
was once a preceptory of the Knights Templars and now has a station on
the main line of the South Western Railway, to Wincanton, a small
market town on the Cale ("Wyndcaleton") at the head of the Vale of
Blackmore.
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