WOOKEY, a parish in the hundred of WELLSFORUM, county of SOMERSET, 1 mile (W.) from Wells, containing 1040 inhabitants. The living is a discharged vicarage, in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Subdean of Wells, rated in the king's books at £12.15. 10., and endowed with £400 private benefaction, and £400 royal bounty. The church is dedicated to St. Matthew. In the side of the Mendip hills, about a mile and a half from the village, is a curious cavern, termed Wookey Hole, the approach to which is surrounded by scenery extremely wild and picturesque: the entrance is very narrow, but within are several spacious apartments, one of them resembling the interior of a church, the roof and sides of which are encrusted with concretions of most fantastical form, while on the floor are other large petrifactions, formed by the water dropping from above. Beyond it is a smaller cavity, and this leads to a third, the diameter of which is about one hundred and twenty feet its roof cylindrical, and its bottom composed of a fine sand, on one side of which runs avery cold and pure stream of water, the primary source of the river Ax.