are grown. It was a borough as early as the reign of Edward the
Confessor, but its corporation was abolished in 1886. Its most notable
feature is the church of St John the Baptist. It is a large cruciform
structure with a central tower, having three windows in the belfry, and
rather shallow buttresses. The figure on the W. face of the tower is
supposed to be Henry VI. or Henry VII., that on the E. St John. Within
the church note (1) the roofs, that of the nave plaster with pendants
(1636), those of the aisles oak (15th cent.); (2) the carved capitals
of the S. arcade and squint in the S.E. tower pier; (3) the mural
monument to William Prowse in the N. aisle; (4) the altar before the
tomb of Anne Prowse (in S. aisle), covered with a cloth worked by her
own hands (1720); (5) brass in N. aisle to Roger Harper (1493); (6) in
S. wall of sanctuary piscina and sedilia. In the N. wall is a curious
hole, apparently connected with an external cell (where there are the
remains of a broken piscina). The purpose of this cell is a great
puzzle. The church seems to have possessed two rood-lofts (cp.
Crewkerne); and has a two-storied building on the S. of the W. door,
which is thought by some to be a treasury.

In the town there are some old houses with projecting upper storeys.
One of them, called _The Old Manor House_, deserves a visit for the
sake of a fine ceiling in one of its rooms. In the Town Hall are
preserved the old stocks, the apparatus used in bull-baiting, and a
money-changer's table, dated 1627.

_Babcary_ is a village a short distance E. of the Fosseway, 6 m. N.N.E.
of Ilchester (nearest stat., Sparkford). The first syllable of the name
is a personal appellation which doubtless appears in Babbicombe; the
second is derived from the neighbouring stream. There is a church of
ancient origin, but since its restoration it exhibits little of