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There are days when Somerset feels less like a county and more like a living chronicle, its churches and lanes carrying the weight of centuries while welcoming the wanderer with quiet beauty. Returning here with Rupert, we found ourselves not only walking through villages and estates but stepping into stories of rebellion, exploration, and devotion — each place a page in a history that seemed to open itself to us as we passed.
Our walk that day carried us through three stunning churches before leading us into Ilminster, across the Dillington Estate, and finally back to Whitelackington Church, where so many of these stories converge. The Speke family — long among the local landowners — seemed to appear at every turn. Their manor stood beside St Mary’s in Whitelackington, their family vault lay at Dowlish Wake Church, and through marriage into the Hanning family they came to live at the beautiful Dillington House. Whitelackington’s church, in particular, is crammed with history, much of it revolving around rebellion and challenges to authority. It began with support for the Lollards, a pre‑Reformation movement that opposed Catholic authority. Then in 1497, John Speke threw his weight behind Perkin Warbeck’s challenge to Henry VII. Warbeck pretended to be one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ who had mysteriously disappeared under Richard III’s care. He landed in Cornwall and advanced as far as nearby Taunton before being confronted, arrested, and hanged. John Speke escaped with a fine and must have regained favour, for he was later entrusted with escorting Catherine of Aragon from Plymouth to London to marry Prince Arthur — and she even stayed in the manor house beside St Mary’s on her way to meet her groom.
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The English Civil War saw the Speke family fight strongly for the king, raising their own troop of Horse and giving Prince Rupert a thousand Crown Pieces to prosecute the war. George Speke was captured at Bridgwater, and the family had a very tough time under the Commonwealth. This did not dent their allegiance to Protestantism, though, and when the Duke of Monmouth toured England in 1680 testing his support against his Catholic uncle James, he found a particularly warm welcome at Whitelackington. There was a famous image of the young pretender sitting under a tree near the church, taking refreshment before meeting his Protestant supporters. On the back of this memory, when the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis, he made a point of stopping at Whitelackington and trying to raise troops to support his rebellion against King James II. The Spekes were possibly the highest‑profile supporters of the Duke of Monmouth and furnished a troop of cavalry, and the eldest son John Speke served as a Colonel in the ill‑fated battle at Westonzoyland, which we visited earlier in the week. Sadly, it was the youngest son Charles who would be executed, despite the fact that he did not participate in the rebellion at all — but he had committed the crime of shaking the Duke of Monmouth’s hand. This was enough for Judge Jeffreys to condemn him to death.
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Now I had no idea of this connection, but John Brooke Johnson Brooke has a dedication and was buried in Whitelackington church. He had been due to replace James Brooke as Rajah of Sarawak. However, at the last moment James changed his mind and chose John’s brother Charles instead to replace him when he retired to Burrator in Devon. I have mentioned it before, but James and Charles are buried in St Leonard’s church in Sheepstor, pretty much next to my own great‑great‑great‑grandfather, who also died the same week as James Brooke did in Burrator. I had no idea that there was this connection between Whitelackington and Sheepstor. I also noted that John’s father is commemorated here, and he had been a vicar in Sarawak too. An amazing coincidence.
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I got to talk to a lady who was looking after the church… later in the day Rupert and I ran into her again in Ilminster — we had never visited Ilminster before and knew nobody — except the woman we met in the morning. We had a second lovely chat. Sadly we learned that the church had just had one of its beautiful stained glass windows broken that very morning. It was just a small hole but very distressing for all those involved in the church and doubtless will cost a fortune to repair. These isolated churches are such treasures to the nation, it is always sad when they are damaged whether it be through vandalism or any other way. I am in awe of all those who go out of their way to look after these buildings and seek to pass them on to future generations so that they might enjoy them as much as we can do so today.
We walked due south along some beautiful footpaths, where the countryside opened up with glimpses of old pillboxes and wartime defences from the Ilminster Stop Line — though those stories would come later. Our first real stop was the Church of St John the Evangelist and All Saints at Kingstone, a smaller parish church than Ilminster’s grand Minster, but no less charming. Built of warm hamstone with a slate roof, its roots go back to the 14th century, with records of a church here as early as 1291. The modest nave and chancel are crowned by a sturdy three-stage tower, home to a peal of six bells, some dating back to the 1690s. Inside, the atmosphere is simple and welcoming, with a 15th‑century font, fragments of medieval stained glass, and fittings largely from the 19th century. Today, the church remains active as part of the Winsmoor benefice — a grouping of local parishes that share clergy and resources — ensuring that even small rural congregations like Kingstone (and they don't get much smaller than Kingstone) continue to thrive within the wider Diocese of Bath and Wells.
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But it was St Andrew’s Church at Dowlish Wake that we were really interested in visiting. These two churches are surprisingly close to one another, separated only by a gentle walk through farmland and fields of maize. Where Kingstone feels isolated yet intimate, St Andrew’s carries a different presence — still part of the Winsmoor benefice, but firmly rooted in the life of the village that it overlooks. The church has long been tied to the great estates around Dowlish Wake with landlords who shaped much of the area’s history through the centuries and invested much into St Andrew's itself. Indeed, the Speke family vaults are located at the church in Dowlish Wake, and this was why we had come here. We were seeking the grave and dedication to John Hanning Speke. John Speke was one of the true giants of Victorian exploration and was the first person to correctly identify Lake Victoria as the source of the White Nile. There was some controversy over this claim, as the famous Richard Burton, who had accompanied him on his first expedition, disagreed with Speke, and they had an almighty falling‑out. Speke went back on another expedition with James Grant and found the outflow of water at Ripon Falls that suggested his hunch was correct. There was supposed to be a huge debate in Bath between Speke and Burton, with David Livingstone presiding over it. However, tragedy struck, as the evening before Speke was killed in a hunting accident whilst crossing a wall with a loaded gun that went off. Burton assumed that he had killed himself rather than suffer the ignominy of a debate. The timing could hardly have been worse. News of the death arrived in Bath just as Burton was starting his talk. It would take another twelve long years to confirm beyond all doubt that Speke was correct. It should be said that David Livingstone, along with many of the Royal Geographical Society, attended Speke’s funeral at this beautiful little church. Next to Speke’s funeral casket is a Union Jack which once flew on the British Embassy at Jinja, near the Ripon Falls, which is the spot where Speke first saw the outflow of the Nile from Lake Victoria.
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From here we headed to the pretty little town of Ilminster and went to see the Minster there — sadly it was too late to have a look around the inside, but it looked lovely in the evening sun. So we continued to Dillington Estate and House. As you walk towards the house you see a pillbox and a considerable line of concrete dragon’s teeth, all laid out in 1940 as part of the Ilminster Stop Line that was designed to frustrate any German invasion that might try to use the A303 route to move through southern England. It is the most extensive set of genuine WW2 dragon’s teeth I have seen in this country. It stretches up along the path to the house before turning towards the Taunton Stop Line defences.
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Dillington House has had many owners over the years, including the Spekes. Indeed, it was Anne Speke who married Lord North, who was something of a notorious, if charming, Prime Minister of Britain. He was notorious for not dealing well with the American Revolution and is usually blamed for the catastrophe that unfolded. Later, the house was owned by the Hannings (who married back into the Spekes at some point — hence John Hanning Speke). The Hannings once tried to invest in the brand new technology of steam locomotives — but not ones that ran on rails, rather those that ran on roads. They were somewhat ahead of their time, as the roads struggled to support the weight of the new‑fangled contraptions, but it was an interesting experiment back in the 1830s — seven decades before the internal combustion engine came along. Sadly, the house is vacant now — it had been owned by the local council, who have apparently sold it on to a company that is going to hold weddings there. It would be nice to see such a beautiful building put back to use.
But really this was an amazingly beautiful walk, packed full of fascinating history. The weather was perfect, and the light in the evening was a delight. It is remarkable to think that within just a few miles we encountered stories stretching from Somerset to Sarawak, from Sedgemoor to the Source of the Nile, and even to the Stop Line of 1940. Few walks can carry you across such far‑flung places and pivotal moments in history, yet all remain bound together here in the landscape of one small corner of Somerset.
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