Burrington, Somerset

Description
Burrington, a village and a parish in Somerset. The village stands amid romantic scenery, at the northern skirt of the highest part of the Mendip Hills, 5 miles NE by N of Axbridge, and 5 from Winscombe station on the G.W.R. It has a post office (R.S.O.); money order and telegraph office, Blagdon. Acreage of parish, 2019; population, 409. A romantic hollow leads from the village up the Mendips, and is flanked by ribbed masses of mountain limestone. A descending cavern, at the side of this, about a 1/2 of a mile from the village, was discovered in 1795 to contain about fifty human skeletons, supposed to have been entombed here by the ancient Britons, and discovered afterwards to contain bones of horses, sheep, and other animals, supposed to have taken refuge in it after it ceased to be a place of sepulture. An earthwork, called Burrington Ham, occurs on a hill farther up, and is thought to have been a scene of Druidical rites. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Bath and Wells; net value, £124 with residence, in the gift of the parishioners. The church, of Early Perpendicular date, was restored in 1856 and again in 1884, and faithfully reproduced upon the original lines.