TOPSY-TURVY VILLAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20288, 22 June 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

TOPSY-TURVY VILLAGE.

DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF. When Baldric do Nonynlon, knight, added the Somersetshire village of D'Overoy to his Manor of Estloctun, Luecombe, in 1279, he did not foresee the trouble he would make. It has taken 650 years to put the matter right, for because D'Overev was joined to Luc* combo, Porlock, in West Somerset, has been a village divided against itself. Porlock used to bo tho homo of topsv t.urvydom. When walking down the main street ono monent one was in Porlock, the other ho was not. All the village inns were in one parish. One-half tho village was "wet" and the ather "dry;" Porlock has been a village where, the water-cart -was allowed to water only ono side of the street; the policeman needed a tape-measure to find out which parish his prisoner was in; in the village street half the village paid double to bo buried when they died, and people wer# carried across the street to dio so that their relatives might' claim the parish charities; separate rates existed for opposite sides of the road. Porlock is topsy-turvyland no longer. The Ministry of Health has undone the •mischief that Baldno de Nonynton caused by confirming an order, divorcing Doverhay, the half of Porlock which made the trouble, from Luccombe, and weddi;ag it to • Porlock,,