These are the worthies
whose arms are recorded in the windows of Ockwells. Nash gave a
drawing of the house in his _Mansions of England in the Olden Time_,
showing the interior of the hall, the porch and corridor, and the east
front; and from the hospitable door is issuing a crowd of gaily
dressed people in Elizabethan costume, such as was doubtless often
witnessed in days of yore. It is a happy and fortunate event that this
noble house should in its old age have found such a loving master and
mistress, in whose family we hope it may remain for many long years.
Another grand old house has just been saved by the National Trust and
the bounty of an anonymous benefactor. This is Barrington Court, and
is one of the finest houses in Somerset. It is situated a few miles
east of Ilminster, in the hundred of South Petherton. Its exact age is
uncertain, but it seems probable that it was built by Henry, Lord
Daubeney, created Earl of Bridgewater in 1539, whose ancestors had
owned the place since early Plantagenet times. At any rate, it appears
to date from about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is a
very perfect example of the domestic architecture of that period. From
the Daubeneys it passed successively to the Duke of Suffolk, the
Crown, the Cliftons, the Phelips's, the Strodes; and one of this last
family entertained the Duke of Monmouth there during his tour in the
west in 1680.
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