

ceiling was seriously decayed, and it was decided, while the whole 

 building was put in thorough repair, to replace the moulded rafters with 

 new ones precisely similar, so that the original character of the edifice 

 might not be debased. The fine pulpit, pews, and admirable font, the 

 rare stone screen, and mural tablets, all received due attention. The 

 repairs are being executed by Mr. Andrews, of Thornford, under the 

 supervision of Mr. Benson, architect, of Yeovil. 



Leaving Bradford Abbas, another ride brought the party to Clifton 

 Maybank, a fragment of the fine dwelling-house of the Horsey's, a family 

 of much importance in Tudor times, but whose prosperity suffered severely 

 in those of the Stuart dynasty. Authorities consider the original house 

 was at least three times the size of the existing building, which was 

 reported to have extended all across the court at the rear, and to have 

 been situated on the present garden, facing the old pleasaunce. The 

 octangular trussed buttresses and frieze pierced cusp work in the south 

 front of the existing structure indicate the date of its erection to have 

 been the latter part of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth 

 century. The most beautiful feature of the west fa9ade is the oriel 

 window, near the apex of the gable, with panels at the base bearing the 

 sculptured allusive badge of the house a golden horse's head, flanked by 

 the double rose of the Tudors. According to Hamilton Ilogers, the style 

 of architecture and ornament are of the Early-Transition period, and are 

 not sufficiently leavened with the Classic to date its construction to the 

 clays of Elizabeth or her immediate predecessor. This archaeologist 

 considers the house was erected in the first quarter of the sixteenth 

 century by 'Squire John Horsey and his wife. The Rev. O. P. Cambridge 

 read an extract from Hamilton Rogers' work Memorials of the 

 West. It ran as follows : " After the death of the unfortunate 

 Sir G. Horsey, in 1611, the noble old house appears to have been 

 held intermediately by Heale, whose heiress, according to Hutchins, 

 brought it to Hungerford, who sold it to the Harveys, of Comb, 

 in Surrey, and they were its possessors in 1661. Notwithstanding 

 this fifty years' vicissitude of ownership, and passing from hand 

 to hand, it had probably suffered little change structurally up to 

 the date of its purchase by the Harveys ; we now get an ominous 

 glimpse of its preparatory declension. Writing in 1773 Hutchins 

 continues, ' The mansion house is a large and stately pile of buildings, 

 repaired, sashed, and otherwise modernised by the Harveys.' Then, 

 doubtless, all the rich oak Tudor carved work and stone-mullioned 

 windows, radiant with sparkling armories, were ousted, to make way for 

 the bold monotony of deal panelled parallelograms, lit by the dingy 



