[1] The house has been called the most beautiful of its kind in England; in 1927, Christopher Hussey, near the start of a 50-year career as an architectural authority, termed it "the one which created the greatest impression and summarises so exquisitely English country life qualities.

In Somerset and adjoining Dorset, many such houses as Brympton d'Evercy contain wings in several architectural styles by unrecorded local architects and builders.

Before the 17th century, the architect's profession was unknown, Sir John Summerson has observed: all houses were built by local builders following the ideas of their patrons.

Born in Somerset, Webb moved to London, but after his cosmopolitan success worked in Dorset at Kingston Lacy – a new mansion, built by the Banks family to replace Corfe Castle, destroyed by Cromwellian troops in the Civil War.

[7] Two large windows on either side of the door provide light for the double-height Great Hall, which was much increased in size by the new west front.

However, it retains its original mock battlements, which betray its age, as does a slight irregularity in the placements of the windows, compared to the perfect symmetry of the adjoining, later south wing.

The house, obviously designed for a person of refinement, had unusually good sanitation in the form of two garderobes; the wooden chutes were still in existence in the early 20th century.

The new front projects further forward than the previous, so that the older turret of the north wing became less obvious, as three-quarters of its mass was absorbed into the enlarged hall.

Finally, as the house is of ten bays, it has no central focus: this is not an architectural crime, but what is such is that the South front in its centre has a focal point: a drain pipe sited there since the building's completion.

Known as the state apartments, they follow an arrangement common in houses built before about 1720, where important guests were lodged: a series of rooms in a strict order of precedence.

Entered through great gate piers crowned by urns (see the illustration at the top of page), such an effect is softened and de-formalised by lawns and some very English-style flower beds.

Christopher Hussey suggests[2] that the D'Evercy's manor at Brympton was little more than an unostentatious range of buildings on the site of that part of the present staircase wing (marked K on plan), with an adjoining farmyard to the north of it.

Thomas d'Evercy was part of the retinue of the Norman Earl of Devon, which is the reason he left the family estates on the Isle of Wight to reside in Somerset.

In 1343 the estate was recorded as "a manor house sufficiently built with a certain garden adjoining planted with divers and many apple trees, the whole covering some two acres."

The countess was responsible for installing the classical fireplaces which remain today, and assembling the furniture and art collection that were not dispersed until in a large sale in the late 1950s.

Lady Georgiana Fane, like her mother of a lively disposition, declined a proposal of marriage from Lord Palmerston, preferring instead to conduct a liaison with the Duke of Wellington.

"[24] It has also been claimed that Lady Georgiana in fact refused the young future Duke of Wellington's proposal, on the grounds she could not marry so lowly a soldier.

Another version of the same story is that Lady Georgiana's father the 10th Earl of Westmorland forbade the marriage of his daughter to an untitled soldier with apparently limited prospects.

Throughout Sir Spencer's ownership of Brympton the house and estate were maintained, but survived only through the good fortune of low taxation and agricultural rents.

Violet Clive, the next owner of the property, has been described as "a grand eccentric and remarkable woman [who] played hockey for the west of England, rowed for the Leander Club, was a master carpenter and keen landscape gardener.

This quiet existence admirably suited the family's finances, because on her death in 1955, her only son and heir Nicholas Clive-Ponsonby-Fane was forced to sell the contents of the house.

Described extensively, if a little quaintly, by the auctioneers John D Wood & Co. of London as "including interesting examples of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, a fine set of George II chairs, Queen Anne and Chippendale mirrors, cabinets, chests, tables, buffets, sets of chairs, clocks, Jacobean needlework, French commodes, vitrines, tables and numerous other period piece... old paintings and a library of books.

Also in the sale were numerous works by Kneller, Romney, Lely, Snyders and at least ten attributed to Van Dyke: the paintings are listed in the "contents of the house" together with Tudor, Chippendale, Sheraton and Louis XV furniture, and an "assortment of bed sheets", "3 new towels and an "old bedspread".

[33] "The 400 chairs provided for the convenience of the buyers proved insufficient to accommodate the company.... Top price of the week was £2000 for a Chinese dinner service... many of the pieces being badly damaged... a pair of Chippendale mirrors £1,350... a small carpet £800".

And so the list continued, detailing the prices fetched for Brympton d'Evercy's former treasures, including first editions of works by Charles Dickens and Daniel Defoe.

Few of its former contents remained, and while Brympton d'Evercy is not on a par with Blenheim Palace in size, it still required large items and quantities of high-quality antique furniture, and this proved to be the stumbling block to opening it successfully to stately home visitors.

The Clive-Ponsonby-Fanes made great efforts to draw in the crowds, with an agricultural museum, a vineyard, and a distillery of apple brandy, but none of this was interesting enough to attract visitors from as far afield as London, let alone from overseas.

It did not succeed as a showpiece: they had run out of money, the internal decorations were dreadful, and they lacked the proper kit to make it look like anything more than a prep school on open day.

As recently as June 2005 a public planning enquiry was held to investigate the suitability of 15 hectares of land adjacent to the house to be developed as a business park.

[41] The Turn of the Screw, a 2009 adaptation by the BBC of classic Henry James novel starring Michelle Dockery and Dan Stevens, was filmed at the house and grounds.