ARCHITECTURE OF XEIGHBOrRHOOP OF YEOVIL. 7 



period on which I am engaged which Struck rae as most 

 Avorthy of notice, adding some brief account of those do- 

 mestic biüldings In which this region is so singuhwly rieh. 

 I shall ask mv hearers to accompany me on a somewhat 

 long circuit, — an imaginary jouvney, in fact, which I have 

 patched up out of four or five real ones. I will suppose 

 you then to have diligently studied Yeovll church, with 

 the criticlsnis which I ofFered on it last year in your hands, 

 as they may be found in the Society's last published volume. 

 I thence ask you to accompany me first to Erimpton. I 

 do not quite know how to take you from Yeovil, as I 

 mvself reached the place from quite another direction ; 

 but I will suppose you somehow conveyed (with the 

 Kector's leave, if it would involve a trespass) to the spot 

 just in front of the parsonage. From that polnt, one of 

 the most striking architectural groups I know will be 

 Seen lying in the hollow beneath. A large and stately 

 mansion, a house of humbler pretensions, and the parish 

 church, all lie close together, and all are worthy of attentlve 

 study. The church is small, and was originally a Decorated 

 cross church, without aisles or tower. The south transept, 

 with a beautiful Geometrical window to the south, and a 

 foliated arch connecting it ^^^th the nave ; the foliated 

 south door, and a piscina in what was the north transept, 

 are all pleasing examples of that style, and enable us to 

 form a good notlon of a Somersetshire church of the earlier 

 period. But some benefactor of Perpendicular times, some 

 inhabitant doubtless of the adjoining mansion, whose name 

 and exact date some local antiquary will, I doubt not, be 

 able to supply,* founded a chantry for three priests. He 



• It appears, from Mr. Batten's account, that the architectural changes 

 were all raade about the same time, in the roign of Henry VII., by a 

 benefactor of the name of Sydonham ; but that the original foundation of 

 the chantry was due to au earlier family, named D'Evercy, temp. Ed- 

 ward I. 



