AXBRIDGE, 10 m.  N.W. of Wells, is an ancient town, which still preserves an air of antiquity.  It is situated in a neighbourhood largely devoted to market gardens, in which quantities of strawberries 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 interest except a piscina (with credence shelf) and a good Caroline pulpit (1632).

Babington, 1 m.  S. of Mells Road station.  There is no village.  The church dates from the reign of George II. Babington House is a mansion of some age but little beauty.

Backwell, 1-1/2 m.  S.E. of Nailsea station, a parish which perhaps owes its name to the back or ridge on which it stands.  It has a spacious church, prettily situated.  The Perp. tower has double belfry windows, and elaborate pinnacles, but the summit seems to have been injured and rebuilt, for the upper lights are enclosed within an ogee moulding which breaks the line of the parapet; and one of the pinnacles is of unusual character.  At the S. door note stoup, and within the church observe (1) the 15th cent. screen; (2) the squints, high up in the chancel pillars; (3) the E.E. sedilia on the S.; and (4) the chapel on the N. side of the sanctuary.  In front of the chapel is a large tomb with a full length effigy of a knight in armour (probably a Rodney); whilst within there is a mural brass and other memorials.  The chapel is the resting-place of Elizabeth, successively wife of Sir Walter Rodney and of Sir John Chaworth, who died 1536.