Nearby Athelney is famous for being the refuge of King Alfred the Great from the Danes before the Battle of Ethandun in 878, and the site of a monastery he founded after his victory.

A range of neutral grassland types supporting common and scarce plants has developed mainly due to variations in soils and management practices.

Today it carries the A361 road from Taunton to Street, and the Great Western Railway London Paddington to Penzance main line.

The current church at East Lyng, which is dedicated to St Bartholomew, is thought to have been built by the monks who were displaced from Athelney Abbey when it was dissolved by King Henry VIII of England in 1539.

The paired two-light bell-chamber windows have Somerset tracery flanked by attached shafts and pinnacles, with quatrefoil grilles.

[8] The East Lyng churchyard contains the grave of George Marston[9] who was the artist for Ernest Shackleton's 1914 Endurance Trans-Antarctic Expedition.