is _Sexey's Hospital_, an asylum for a few old men and women, founded
in 1638 by Hugh Sexey, a Bruton stable-boy, who in the "spacious days"
of Good Queen Bess rose to be auditor in the royal household. It
consists of a quadrangle, the S. side of which is formed by a combined
hall and chapel of Elizabethan architecture, finely panelled with black
oak. The surplus revenues of Sexey's estate support a local Trade
School. Bruton also possesses a well-equipped Grammar School, of Edward
IV.'s foundation, which replaced an earlier school established here in
1520 by Richard Fitz-James, Bishop of London (1506-22).
_Brympton d'Evercy_, a small parish 3 m. W. of Yeovil. It gets its name
from the D'Evercys, who seem to have possessed the estate in the 13th
cent., but it subsequently passed to other families, till in the 15th
cent. it fell to the Sydenhams, changing hands again in the 18th cent.
The church is a very interesting structure of the Dec. period. It is
cruciform in plan, with a N. chapel of Perp. date, and has on its W.
gable a large bell-cot (cp. Chilthorne Domer). Within, note (1) stone
screen (Perp.), remarkable for the seat along its W. front, (2)
piscinas in chancel, transepts, and chapel, (3) font (Dec.), (4) pulpit
(Jacobean), (5) chandeliers (said to be Dutch), (6) squints. There are
several effigies, which are not in their original positions, but are
conjectured to have belonged to a chapel now destroyed. They are, (1)
in the N. transept an abbot and a nun beneath recesses carved with
modern reliefs; (2) in the chapel a knight in armour and a lady.
Between the chapel and chancel is the large coloured tomb of Sir John
Sydenham, 1626 (the curious epitaph is worth reading). In the chapel is
some ancient glass, and in the churchyard there is the base of an old
cross and two early fonts.
N. of the church is a building of two storeys, variously described as a
_chantry house_ (a chantry was founded here by Sir Peter d'Evercy,
1307) or a _manor house_, with an external octagon turret containing a
staircase. _Brympton House_ (the residence of Sir S.C.B. Ponsonby-Fane)
has a good W. front of Tudor date (note arms of Henry VIII.), with a
porch added in 1722, and a S. front built in the 18th cent., though
from designs by Inigo Jones (died 1697), with terrace leading to the
garden.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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