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By any standards Somerset's churches are outstanding. Visitors begin by recognising their fine, late-medieval towers but are soon drawn inside to see carved bench-ends and ornate screens, fine stained glass and fascinating monuments - the product of ten centuries and more of religious devotion and consummate artistry. This is the story of fifty churches and chapels out of the county's six hundred and more to tell the story of saints, of eccentrics, prosperous Unitarians and struggling Methodists; of inspired architects and generous patrons, the story of the Church in the county from the time of the Romans to the present day.

Thirty-four families closely linked with the historic county of Somerset, are described with panache by county historian Dr Robert Dunning.

Whilst many have produced occasional black sheep, all have made their mark in a wide variety of ways on the life of the county, so that their intertwined stories amount to a social, political and commercial history of Somerset over more than half a millennium.Some of the names featured in Somerset Families:Acland-Hood, Carew, Cely-Trevilian, Clark, Dickinson, Elton, Fox, Gibbs, Gore-Langton, Harbin, Helyar, Hippisley-Cox, Hobhouse, Horner, Kemeys-Tynte, Leir, Luttrell, Lyte, Medlycott, Mohun, Phelips, Portman, Poulett, Seymour, Smyth, Speke, Stowell, Stuckey, Trevelyan, Vaughan-Lee, Waldegrave, Wills, Wyndham.

Invaluable to any genealogist, each chapter is packed with anecdote and aside as well as fact, making the book not only a work of reference but a thoroughly entertaining read.(297 x 210mm hardback, 160 pages, profusely illustrated in black and white)