noticed some ancient wooden benches with the Tudor badge at their ends, spared by the restorer, who has here done his work carefully and well.  On the chancel arch may be seen the gaps left in the stonework where the old wooden screen once stood, also the stone brackets for the rood-beam.  The ancient colouring, mellowed and softened by long time, still remains on the beams of the roof.  The fine west window will be noticed and also other windows, small and curiously placed.  The church has a north door, possibly a “Devil’s Door,” through which the exorcised spirit passed at the baptismal service.  About two miles south-east of Yetminster is the small village of Leigh, with a sixteenth-century church and the remains of two ancient crosses.  In the vicinity is a remarkable “maze” or prehistoric “Troy Town.”

The Weymouth Railway could be taken from Yeovil to Evershot, nine miles to the south, among the beautiful hills and valleys of what may be described, for want of a better name, as the Melbury Downs.  The ridges of these North Dorset highlands are traversed to a large extent by good roads from which most delightful views may be had, delightful not only for their great extent but for the exquisite near peeps at the remote and lost villages and hamlets that sleep in their deep combes.  The western extremity of this particular group of hills is Cheddington, about three miles from Beaminster, where is, perhaps, the most extensive view in Dorset.  Evershot village is a mile and a half to the west of the station and within a few minutes’ walk of St. John’s Spring, the source of the Frome.  The rebuilt church contains an interesting brass to William Grey (1524), rector, and depicts him in pre-reformation vestments holding the sacred elements in his raised hands.  A road leads north through the lovely glades of Melbury Park, Lord Ilchester’s seat, to Melbury Sampford.  Melbury House is of three main periods—­fifteenth century in the older and hidden portions, sixteenth century as regards the main building erected by Sir Giles Strangeways, and late seventeenth century when the Corinthian pillars were added to the east front.  The beautiful sheets of water—­feeders of the Yeo (for we have crossed the “divide”) lend an added grace to a park rich with groves of magnificent trees.  One of them, called “Billy Wilkins,” is a famous oak, thirty-seven feet in girth.  Sampford church is a cruciform Decorated building with some interesting monuments to the Strangeways, the family of Lord Ilchester.  The late peer was the donor of the beautiful modern reredos, and the decoration of the chancel is due to him.  Melbury Bubb stands a mile or more to the east under the shadow of the imposing Bubb Down.  Its diminutive church has been much restored and has little of interest, except some ancient glass that has been left in the windows.  A glorious walk could be taken eastwards by lonely little Batcombe with its marvellous legends of “Conjuring Minterne,” whose grave is in the churchyard.  Thence the solitary hill-way goes by the mysterious stone called “Cross in Hand” along the tops of the hills past High Stoy (860 feet), an outstanding bastion, Ridge Hill and Buckland Newton.