Church of St Andrew, Dowlish Wake that to John Hanning Speke, who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and is associated with the search for the source of the Nile. He was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. In the churchyard is Speke Hall which was built in 1840 as a Sunday School and now serves as the village hall. Outside the church gate is a memorial stone. Church of St Andrew, Dowlish Wake The Anglican Church of St Andrew in Dowlish Wake, Somerset, England was built in the 14th century. It is a Grade II* listed building. The church contains some of the fabric
John Hanning Speke he found hard and time consuming as he was not naturally a gifted writer. He failed to give a good and full report to the RGS for many months and thus in effect was not defending his positions of discovery. In addition Speke had a public dispute with the Pethericks who had by and large acted according to their RGS instructions but Speke had felt they had not. All this led Roderick Murchison, president of the Royal Geographical Society, to start disliking Speke and a third expedition, led by Speke, was becoming less likely as it would have to be