Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/380

302 men of many acres. Combe-in-Teignhead has a very fine screen and equally good old benches. Wolborough has a good church occupying a site that was once a camp, and contains an excellent screen, well restored and glittering with gold and colour. East Ogwell has also a screen, and the old manor mill is a picturesque object for the pencil. Denbury is a strong camp.

Torbrian, situated in a lovely spot, has fine screen-work and monuments of the Petres. The three Wells, Cofrmswell, Kingskerswell, and Abbots-kerswell, lie together. At Kingskerswell are some old monumental effigies of the Prowse family. At Abbotskerswell are a screen, and a large statue of the Blessed Virgin in a niche of the window splay. This latter had been plastered over into one great bulk; when the plaster was removed the statue was revealed. The very fine Jacobean altar-rails were removed at the "restoration," to make place for something utterly uninteresting. Here there is an early and interesting church-house. The church-house was the building in which the parishioners from a distance spent a rainy time between morning service and vespers. The house was divided by a floor into two storeys, that above for women, that below for the men. Here were also held the church ales, that is to say, the ale brewed by the wardens and sold to defray church expenses. The ale was also supplied on Sundays by the clerk to those who tarried for even-song, and so, little by little, most of these old church-houses degenerated into taverns.

Abbotskerswell is the seat of the Aller pottery