_Holcombe_, a colliery village 3-1/2 m. S. of Radstock. It has a small
modern church; but an old church, now disused, lies in a dingle in some
fields a mile away from the village. This possesses a good Norm. S.
doorway, with a curious inverted inscription scratched on one of the
capitals. The careless rebuilding of the columns shows that it is not
in its original position.

_Holford_, a village 6 m. E. from Williton, at the foot of the
Quantocks. Its church is picturesquely situated; in the graveyard is an
old cross with a mutilated figure on the shaft. Past the church, two
pleasant combes may be reached, Tannery Combe and Hodder's Combe (the
latter is perhaps a corruption of the name of Odda, the Earl of Devon
who aided Alfred, see p. 201). The hill between them bears the name of
_Hare Kanp_, possibly preserving the memory of the Saxon armies that
once marched along the trackway that crosses it (M.E. and A.S. _here_,
an army). Near Holford is _Alfoxden_, the residence of Wordsworth in
1797, when Coleridge was at Nether Stowey.

[Illustration: ALFOXDEN HOUSE, NEAR HOLFORD]

_Holton_, a village 2-1/2 m. S.W. of Wincanton. Its church is small and
contains a stone 15th-cent. pulpit and a Norm. font. On the S. porch is
an old sundial, and in the churchyard the base of a cross.

_Holms, The Flat and Steep_, two islands in the Bristol Channel,
forming familiar objects to all visitors to the Somerset sea-board.
Geologically they belong to the county, for they are the last expiring
protest of the Mendip chain against its final submergence in the sea.
The Steep Holm, the nearer and more conspicuous of the two islets, 5 m.
from the coast, is little better than a barren rock rearing its huge