Information AboutBrympton D'evercy |
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Brympton d'Evercy is a Manor House near Yeovil in the County of Somerset , England. It has been described as the most beautiful house in England, in a country of beautiful country houses; whatever the truth of that statement, in 1927 the British magazine '' Country Life '' published a set of three articles on the house, in which Christopher Hussey , near the start of his 50-year career as a notable architectural authority and documentor of British country houses, described Brympton d'Evercy as "The most incomparable house in Britain, the one which created the greatest impression and summarises so exquisitely English country life qualities". Hussey's articles remain the only detailed account of the mansion. During its long history Brympton d'Evercy has belonged to just four families, the d'Evercys, the Sydenhams, the Fanes, and the most recent owner who purchased the property in 1992. Part of its Englishness lies in Brympton D'Evercy's not having been built in a single campaign as an entirety; instead, it was slowly expanded between about 1220 , when it was begun by the D'Evercy family, and the 18th century. During three quarters of a millennium it has remained little known, and little recorded. For a few years following World War II Brympton d'Evercy was a boy's school, before being reclaimed by its owners as a private house. Today occasionally hired out as a location for filming, or a hospitality event, it remains essentially a private residence. HISTORY .]] The house is part of a complex consisting of the Mansion , its stables and other outbuildings, the Parish church and a curious building today known as the "priest house". Little remains of the original D'Evercy manor built between 1220 and 1325 , for on its site the present house has evolved. The village of Brympton is larger today than at any time in its history. Until the last century the Village barely qualified for the title, having been deserted in the 14th Century . Since then the village has consisted merely a few cottages scattered along the long drive to the mansion's secluded site, a few of these cottages can be discerned in the view by Knyff (''illustrated right'')Today a new area known as Brympton is a Suburb of Yeovil which encroaches on the secluded house at an alarming pace. In Somerset and the adjoining county of Dorset , such houses as Brympton d'Evercy containing wings in an assortment of architectural styles by unrecorded local architects and builders are numerous. The owners of these houses were nearly all related to each other in some way, and competition among them was great. As a result one often finds in various houses wings that are almost identical, having been constructed by the same builder, rather than an architect using drawings based on the works of the master architects from as far afield as Rome . This is particularly true from the 17th Century onwards. The owners of Brympton d'Evercy at various times were related to the Stourtons of of 1619 set a standard, and was much copied; by the 1630 s his ideas permeated as far as Somerset. Among the grander families, there was generally a Member Of Parliament , or as in the case of the earls of Ilchester, the head of the family kept a London House . These more travelled members of this provincial society would return to their Somerset Estates and Country House s with the latest architectural ideas. Occasionally one of the richer county families would employ a renowned architect, such as John Webb , Jones's son-in-law. Born in Somerset, Webb moved to London, but following his cosmopolitan success later worked in Dorset at Kingston Lacy —a new mansion, built by the Banks family to replace Corfe Castle destroyed by Cromwellian troops in the Civil War — and at Wilton House in the adjacent county of Wiltshire . Once introduced to Somerset practice, the new genres of architecture were interpreted by the local Draughtsmen and Mason s, and then applied, often haphazardly, to the old houses of the local Gentry , and what one cousin had in one part of Somerset the next cousin soon had in another. In this way Brympton d'Evercy and its neighbours slowly evolved. ARCHITECTURAL APPRAISAL For 250 years from 1434 the Sydenham family created Brympton d'Evercy until it appeared today. Each generation enlarged and altered the house depending on their whim or current fashion. The west front (''pictured top of page'') was built during the late Tudor period. The two large windows either side of the door light the double height Great Hall , which as a result of the new west front substantially increased the size of the D'Evercy's original Great Hall. The older North wing to the left of the great hall was likely to have contained the private rooms of its builder John Sydenham. The architecture of the house is as diverse as the characters who created it over its four hundred year process of evolution. Built in its entirety from the immediately local Ham Hill stone, a stone of a unique golden yellow colour, which is used as a building material in just a few villages in the immediate vicinity of Yeovil. It appears for the first few years the Sydenhams owned the house they were content with that purchased from the heirs of the d'Evercy family. However from the mid 15th century English domestic architecture began to awaken to the ideas of privacy and comfort, if only for the immediate family of the head of the household. These new ideals are perfectly reflected at Brympton d'Evercy in the first major building works undertaken by the Sydenhams in 1460 . The 1460 wing This is the first expansion of the original d'Evercy house, probably on the site of the present staircase hall (''"K" on plan'') occurred in 1460, when the Sydenhams added the southwest block ('''''"B"''' on plan''). This contained the house's first Reception Room s other than the hall, consisting of a Solar and retiring or withdrawing rooms for the lord of the manor and his family. Until this time the entire household would have lived and dined together in the hall. This wing has been much altered, having been given a new fenestration in the 17th century, when the south wing was built. However, the wing retains its original mock Battlements , which together with the slight irregularity of the placements of the windows, compared to the perfect symmetry of the adjoining later south wing betray its older age. The Priest House In the late 15th century, a free-standing earlier structure (''marked "E" on plan'') was very much enhanced; it flanks the mansion almost as though it were a wing of the house itself. Its origins and uses have always been debated. Possibly this was the chantry said to have been built by the D'Evercy family. Though it is known traditionally as the "priest's house", its entrance faces away from the church, into the former forecourt of the 15th-century house. "It may originally have been a range of lodgings for retainers or guests" (Cooper 1999 p 258). Whatever its original use, it seems certain that it was remade as a Dower House by Joan Stourton, who had married John Sydenham in 1434 , not realising that her own son was to predecease her, thus allowing her to remain in the main house for the duration of her life. The building is a very rare example of a complete small Medieval country house, an oblong structure on two floors, the upper floor containing a hall, solar and bedroom, while the lower floor for servants had no internal means of reaching the upper floor, to which access was only obtained by a newel staircase in a turret with only an external entrance. The house obviously designed for a person of refinement had unusually good sanitation in the form of two Garderobes the wooden chutes were still in existence in the early 20th century. The siting of the garderobes here facing the church re-enforces this was considered the rear of the house, an arrangement such as this would not have been made if this were in fact the Priest's house. In the 17th century the Priest's house's principal room, on the upper storey, was given a decorative Plaster ceiling. The North or Henry VIII wing The next major addition to the house was the north wing (''"C" on plan''). With its Turret , Oriel s and external sculpted Moulding it is almost a miniature country house in itself. This wing has remained largely unchanged since it was built circa 1520 . John Sydenham wished to retain an independent lodging at the house after he had handed the house over to his son; for himself he built three floors with a room on each, its own external entrance and staircase turret— a house within a house. Architecturally it must have been strikingly modern at the time of its construction. The facade is richly ornamented with Coats-of-arms and Tracery . The roof line is castellated, the battlements being purely for ornament, not defence. The two upper floors have large oriel windows; between these windows are finely sculpted the coat of arms of King Henry VIII . The Sydenhams were permitted the honour of displaying the royal arms, due to their relationship to the Stourton family who claimed connections with the Blood Royal ; as a consequence this part of the house is sometimes called the Henry VIII wing, though the King never visited the house. Of all the house's varied wings, this north wing is probably the most architecturally accomplished displaying all the most up-to-date traits and flamboyances of contemporary Tudor Architecture . West Front The central section of the west front contains on the ground floor the hall (''marked "A" on the plan''); the rear section of the hall almost certainly was once the great hall of the original smaller d'Evercy manor; this was rebuilt by the Sydenhams in 1450. The great hall though did not achieve its present size until the building of the west front ''("F" on plan'') in the late 16th century. The new front projects further forward than the previous, thus the older turret, of the north wing became less obvious, as three quarters of its mass was absorbed into the enlarged hall. The west front has two large mullioned double height windows flanking the principal entrance. The present glazed Gothick castellated porch (''G on plan'') was added in 1722, when the existing 15th century porch was moved into the garden, given an extra story and transformed into a clock tower ("'''''H'''" on plan''). The hall's central open fire, was replaced by a fireplace complete with chimney, thus a secondary floor was able to be placed above the hall. The kitchen wing The next major addition, still 16th century, was the kitchen block (''"O" on plan'') which is interesting for its huge proportions and barrel vaulted roof, suggesting an original function less humble than a kitchen. The kitchen is on two levels, the upper reached by a flight of short steps from the lower at each side of its width, yet the space does not appear ever to been divided. From the kitchen range a turret projects, (''in the right hand between '''O''' and '''K''' on the plan'') containing a spiral staircase, crowned by a Belfry . This would have originally given a secondary access to the upper floor of the original house, now replaced by the Palladian south wing. From the kitchen stretches another wing ('''''"P"''' on plan'') of indeterminate date (no later than 1690) this seems always to have been known as "the farmhouse" and lived in by the family of the Tenant of the "home farm". It may possibly have been intended as a secondary or service wing, or even part of a grander never-completed scheme. South Front and wing The wing which finally brought the mansion to its present-day appearance is no better documented than the rest of the house. Opinion on the exact date of construction of the south wing is divided (''"L" on plan''), given dates between , (the childhood home of Sir John Posthumous Sydenham's wife) completed in 1638 . These two houses together with Long Ashton House were most probably designed and built by the same local family of architects and masons, working from drawings by Serlio 's treatise on architecture published in five volumes in London in 1611. BAROQUE STATE APARTMENTS by Charles Clive-Ponsonby-Fane, the only monograph on its history]]Whoever the architect was, the new south wing which was intended to transform Brympton d'Evercy from a country manor to grand house. Of ten bays the two storied building housed on its ground floor the finest and most lavishly decorated rooms of the house. Known as the , but was never slept in by a Sovereign . Circa 1720 the fashion for state rooms became antiquated, and they were often transformed for more general and frequent use, this was true at Brympton d'Evercy, the saloon became the Drawing room, the following room became known as the Oak or small drawing room, the next room the dining room, only the state bedroom remained in solitary magnificence slept in by honoured, but non-royal guests. At Brympton d'Evercy this was more likely to be a talented Cricket er than an esteemed Potentate . 19th century works In the mid 19th Century Brympton d'Evercy was the home of Lady Georgiana Fane , a single lady of modest means who had no need of a large and lavish household. Thus the house was not given the Victorian wings given so carelessly to so many of Britain's historic houses. Lady Georgiana confined herself to improvements in the gardens and grounds. She added a balustrade to the walls enclosing the forecourt in front of the west facade, the walls topped by ballustrading link the priest house, Churchyard on the south side, and clock-tower and stables on the north, the effect was to create what in a grander house than Brympton d'Evercy would be known as a Cour D'honneur , Entered through great gate Pier s crowned by Urn s (''see illustration top of page'') the cour d'honneur effect is softened, and de-formalised by lawns and some very English style flower beds. The broad Gravel Terrace along the full extent of the south front was also created at this time, along with the large Pond which reflects it. Other than necessary restoration work, and installation of modern Plumbing and Electricity , little has been added to the house since the 19th century. OWNERS The d'Evercy family The d'Evercy family were responsible for building the almost adjoining church. Christopher Hussey suggests that the D'Evercy's manor at Brympton was little more than an unostentatious range of buildings on the site of that part of the present staircase wing (''marked K on plan''), with an adjoining Farmyard to the north of it. The remains of a farm does exist on the probable site of the D'Evercy's farm today, and an old farmhouse (''marked '''P''' on plan'')actually adjoins the much later south wing built on the probable site of the original manor. Thomas d'Evercy purchased the estate in 1220 from the Chilterne family (of whom nothing is known). The d'Evercy family derived their name from Evrecy , a village near Caen in Normandy. Thomas d'Evercy was part of the retinue of the Norman Earl Of Devon , which is the reason he left the family estates on the Isle Of Wight to reside in Somerset. D'Evercy represented Somerset and South Hampshire at the first English Parliament . Following Thomas d'Evercy's death family records are scarce until the time of the last d'Evercy, Sir Peter, who twice represented Somerset in Parliament, under Edward II . The church next to the house, dedicated to St. Andrew , dates from this period. Sir Peter founded a Chantry at Brympton d'Evercy in 1306 , endowing a priest with a Messuage and 40 Acres in the Parish . It has been suggested that this is the building today known as the priest house, but no structural evidence exists to support this claim . Sir Peter died in 1325, when the estate was described as "''a certain capital messuage, with gardens and closes adjoining''" . The village at this time consisted of 17 smallholders, and three tenant farmers. Sir Peter's widow remained in occupation, and on her death the estate passed to the Glamorgan family, the d'Evercy's daughter Amice having married John de Glamorgan. Later it seems to have passed through obscure descent to the Wynford family of whom nothing other than their names is recorded. In 1343 the estate was recorded as: "..a manor house sufficiently built with a certain garden adjoining planted with divers and many apple trees, the whole covery some two acres" the record goes on to record some forty householders all charged to serve their lord as "village blacksmith,drover or domestic servant" . This was the highest population the village was to have until the late 20th century. The Sydenham family (1676–1739), the last Sydenham to reside at Brympton d'Evercy.]]In 1430 following a legal battle over disputed titles, the Wynfords sold the estate to John Stourton, lord of the nearby manor at Preston Plucknett , who used it as a Dowry for his daughter Joan when she married John Sydenham in 1434 . The Sydenhams were said at one time to be England's largest landowners , yet their wealth seems to have fluctuated with each Generation . John Sydenham as in Infant inherited the estate from his grandmother the original Joan Sydenham (née Stourton). However, at this time Brympton D'Evercy was not the principal family residence. In 1534 John Sydenham made over the house to his son, also, John - having first built the North wing to be his private lodgings for later visits. The new owner John III, was a great landowner bequeathing to each of his many children an estate. This lack of Primogeniture proved to be the Sydenham's downfall. John III's successor John IV (died 1585 ), and his son John V (died 1625 ) were considerably less wealthy than their forebears, and used the house as their sole residence, the result of which was, despite their comparative penury, they added much to the house. John IV built the present west front thus enlarging the hall, and John V built the large kitchen block. Sir John Posthumous Sydenham ("Posthumous" because born after the death of his father) built the south wing in the 17th century. He married Elizabeth Poulett, a descendent of Sir Amias Poulett , and member of one of Somerset's oldest and most notable families. The Pouletts lived at nearby Hinton House at Hinton St George . Sir John died in 1696, having severely depleted the family's already precarious fortune building the house's state apartments. Sir John was succeeded by his son Philip, a week Spendthrift character, but also a Member of Parliament for Somerset. At the time this was an expensive rich man's occupation and the Sydenham's money was running out. By 1697 Philip Sydenham was attempting to sell the estate for a price between £16,000 and £20,000. In the event of no purchaser being found Sydenham Mortgage d the estate to Thomas Penny, the Receiver General of Somerset, the official who collected Somerset's Tax es for the Crown . Penny made a few alterations to the mansion: he added the castellated and glazed Porch to the South front, removing the earlier porch to the garden where it became a clock tower. He also and made a new entrance to the priest house. Penny then suffered a blow to his own fortunes, he was found to be rather cavalier in his passing on the taxes he collected to the crown, and was dismissed from office. He died in 1730 having executed no further work to the estate. The house and estate were then put up for auction in 1731 and sold for a price of £15,492.10s. . The Fane family RA.]]The new owner was Francis Fane, a fireplaces which remain in situ today, and assembling the furniture and Art collection which remained at Brympton until it was dispersed in a large sale in the late 1950 s. Lady Georgiana Fane, like her mother of a lively disposition, declined a proposal of marriage from . She altered the house little, but was responsible for the large pond in the garden, and some other improvements in the grounds. She died in 1875 leaving the heavily indebted estate to her nephew the Hon. Spencer Ponsonby, younger son of the 4th Earl Of Bessborough The Ponsonby-Fane family Spencer Ponsonby at the time in Ireland with his elder brother Spencer Ponsonby, newly renamed Spencer Ponsonby-Fane (in accordance with Lady Georgiana Fane's last wishes). He was pillar of the British Establishment , one time private secretary to Lord Palmerston, and later comptroller of Buckingham Palace during the reign of King Edward VII. However it was Cricket which was his first love, although he did father 11 children. Through Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane Brympton d'Evercy became a meeting place of cricket lovers. It had its own Cricket Pitch where large house parties played against local and visiting teams. A houseparty devoted to cricket took place each year, a tradition which survived long after Sir Spencer's death and into the 1950s. As Treasurer of the MCC Sir Spencer laid the foundation stone for the Pavilion at Lords . He founded the Old Stagers club of Canterbury, and most eccentrically the team known as I Zingari , a wandering cricket club of assorted aristocrats and Victorian and Edwardian notables. Throughout Sir Spencer's ownership of Brympton the house and estate were maintained, but survived only through the good fortune of low taxation and agricultural rents. This branch of the Fane family had never been wealthy, and World War I was to bring sweeping changes to not just Brympton d'Evercy but country houses all over Britain. , situated in the north west corner of the forecourt, the doors have massive for the west of England, rowed for the Leander Club , was a master carpenter and keen landscape gardener" . Apart from an annual day trip to London to the Chelsea Flower Show and a short annual holiday at her fishing lodge in Ireland she seldom left Brympton d'Evercy, preferring to spend her days in endless gardening in the style of Gertrude Jekyl . This quiet existence admirably suited the family's finances, because on her death in 1955, her only son and heir Nicholas was forced to sell the contents of the house. This large collection of Fine Art and Antique s assembled by the Countess of Westmorland and Lady Georgiana Fane. Following the sale the family (their surname now extended to Clive-Ponsonby-Fane) moved to the nearby Vicarage . Sale of contents The contents of the house were sold by auction under a , Sheraton and Louis XV furniture, and an "assortment of bed sheets", "3 new towels and an "old bedspread". The sale was reported with due gravity and deference by the provincial press "''The 400 chairs provided for the convenience of the buyers proved insufficient to accommodate the company.....top price of the week was £2000 for a Chinese dinner service..many of the pieces being badly damaged... a pair of Chippendale mirrors £1,350...a small carpet £800''". And so the list continued detailing the prices fetched for Brympton d'Evercy's former treasures. First edition works by Charles Dickens and Daniel Defoe . On the last day of the sale an iron garden seat was sold for £14. Prices for the paintings are not recorded in the article except one of those "after" Vandyck which fetched £85. The Clive-Ponsonby-Fane family retained a few of the family Portrait s and smaller items of furniture and moved to their smaller new home nearby, letting the house to be converted into a boy's boarding school known as Clare School. Nicholas Clive-Ponsonby-Fane retained the ownership of the house and estate until his sudden death in 1963 , when it passed to his wife Petronilla Clive-Ponsonby-Fane on her remarriage in 1967 . The house and what remained of the estate became the property of their son Charles Clive-Ponsonby-Fane. Clare School remained in possession of the house until 1974 . Stately home : A boating party on the "pond" created by Lady Georgiana Fane in the mid 19th Century .]]In 1974 Charles Clive-Ponsonby-Fane reclaimed his ancestral home and moved with his new wife back into Brympton d'Evercy with the intention of restoring it, and opening it to the public as a Stately Home . His problem was that while the empty and neglected house may have been his home but it was far from stately. While the house was structurally in a fair condition, it had not been redecorated since the 18th century and had endured the obvious ravages caused by its use as a boy's school. The redecoration of the state rooms was executed on a very restricted Budget . The principal problem facing the owners was furnishing the house. Few of its former contents remained, and while Brympton d'Evercy is not on a par with Blenheim Palace in size, it still required large items and quantities of high quality antique furniture. This was the stumbling block to the stately home scheme. The Clive-Ponsonby-Fanes made great efforts to draw in the crowds, an agricultural museum, a Vineyard , a Distillery of apple Brandy but none of this was interesting enough to persuade visitors from as far afield as London let alone to cross the Atlantic . Ultimately as a financial enterprise opening to the public failed. In 1992 after almost 300 years of ownership the family sold Brympton d'Evercy. The situation was summed up at the time by the Satirist Auberon Waugh : "''Last week we learnt that the most beautiful house in Somerset has been sold.....it is sad of course for the family who owned it who had made a valiant effort to keep it going ..it did not succeed as a showpiece: they had run out of money, the internal decorations were dreadful, and they lacked the proper kit to make it look like anything more than a prep school on open day. So now the most beautiful house in England will be a private family home once again..''" . BRYMPTON D'EVERCY IN THE 21ST CENTURY The present owner, a member of the Legal profession, and his wife live privately today at Brympton d'Evercy. However, to offset the enormous cost of maintaining such a large and historic Dwelling in the 21st Century , the house has to help earn its own keep, partly by being licensed for Civil Wedding s. These take place in one or two of the larger reception rooms, while receptions and functions can also be held in the house or it grounds, including the 17th century stables. The house has also been the location for Television serials, and Film ing. For the greater part of the year, the house remains a little known home. It is not open for public viewing, and it has not suffered the commercial over exposure that make many of England's historic houses instantly recognisable. The greatest threat to the house, now without its former estate, is the ever encroaching town of Yeovil. Once some miles distant, its suburbs and industrial estates are now almost visible from the windows of the house. As recently as June 2005 a Public Planning Enquiry was held to investigate the suitability of 15 Ha of land adjacent to the house to be developed as a Business Park . It seems unlikely that the tranquillity and seclusion Brympton d'Evercy has enjoyed for over 700 years can survive a further century. 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