HARPTREE (WEST), a parish in the hundred
of CHEWTON, county of SOMERSET, 8 miles (N. by E.)
from Wells, containing 528 inhabitants. The living is
a discharged vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Bath, and
diocese of Bath and Wells,,fated in the king's books at
£13. 19. 4., endowed with £200 private benefaction,
and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage of the
King, as Prince of Wales. The church, dedicated to St.
Mary, has been partly destroyed, and the manor-house
which displays several marks of antiquity, is converted
into a farm-house. Ten poor children are instructed for
£15 a year, the produce of a bequest by Samuel Lockier,
in 1817; and there is a benefaction for apprenticing
children, left by John Buckland, in 1673. Lapis calaminaris
is obtained here to a considerable extent. Ralph
Buckland, a Roman Catholic priest and a learned
theological writer in the reign of James I.; was born
here.