he Reformation the monastery went down in the wreck of
the religious houses, and Sir M. Berkley, who as the king's
standard-bearer was not without friends at Court, came in for the
spoil. The church is a handsome Perp. building, with a noble W. tower
of the Shepton type, decorated with triple windows and a rich parapet.
A second small tower rises above the N. porch (a very unusual feature).
The interior is remarkable for the painful incongruity of the
chancel--a pseudo-classical structure, built in 1743, to replace the
dismantled monastic choir. It contains in a recess on N. recumbent
effigies of Sir M. Berkley and wives (1559-85), and on the opposite
wall a tablet to W. Godolphin (1636). The nave is extremely handsome,
and is covered with a fine roof. Note (1) niches between clerestory
windows (cp. St Mary's, Taunton), (2) stepped recess in N. aisle (cp.
Chewton), (3) indications, on N. and S. walls, of stairway to
rood-loft, which, unless the building was once shorter, must have stood
in an unusually forward position, (4) piscina in S. aisle, (5) fragment
of mediaeval cope in N.E. corner of nave, (6) chained copies of Jewel
(1609) and Erasmus (1548), (7) Jacobean screen under tower. At the W.
gateway is an ancient tomb, said to be that of Abbot Gilbert, whose
initials, _W.G._ are cut on one of the battlements of the N. wall. Near
the school is a quaint pack-horse bridge ("Bruton Bow") spanning the
river (cp. Allerford). In High Street (S. side) will be noticed the old
_Abbey Court-house_ (now a private residence), bearing on its wall the
"canting" device of Prior Henton (1448). On the same side of the street
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