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PORLOCK

Volume 17 · 172 words · 1823 Edition

in the county of Somerset in England, is a small sea-port town six miles west from Minehead. This whole parish, including hamlets, contained 633 inhabitants in 1811. The situation of the town is very romantic, being nearly surrounded on all sides, except towards the sea, by steep and lofty hills, intersected by deep vales and hollow glens. Some of the hills are beautifully wooded, and contain numbers of wild deer. The valleys are very deep and picturesque; the sides being steep, scarred with wild rocks, and patched with woods and forest shrubs. Some of them are well cultivated and studded with villages or single farms and cottages, although agriculture here is very imperfectly understood. Most of the roads and fields are so steep, that no carriages of any kind can be used; all the crops are therefore carried in with crooks on horses, and the manure in wooden pots called dossels. Many of the poor are employed in spinning yarn for the Dunster manufactory. W. Long. 3. 32. N. Lat. 51° 14'.