Barrington Court

Barrington Court stands in the rolling countryside of Somerset, near Ilminster. A Tudor manor house begun in the 1530s and completed in the 1550s, it shows the E-shaped plan typical of Elizabethan mansions. The stable court of 1675 and later outbuildings sit around the house, forming a quiet courtyard. A fire in the early 19th century and years as a tenant farm left the interior gutted. Architect Alfred Hoare Powell led its repair in the early 20th century. The National Trust took ownership in 1907 and leased the house to Colonel Abram Arthur Lyle in the 1920s. The house passed through many owners, from the Daubeney family in the 15th century to the Strodes in the 17th. Gertrude Jekyll designed Arts and Crafts gardens here in the 1920s. Colonel Lyle and his wife ‘Ronnie’ restored the court and converted the stable block into a residence. The Lyles also commissioned new Tudor-style buildings and cottages. The estate once had a medieval deer park and formal gardens that vanished before Jekyll’s redesign. Today the gardens include walled kitchen gardens, fruit orchards and ornamental planting. Visitors find an unfurnished but open manor house with a long gallery on the upper floor. The screens passage leads from the central porch to the hall and a service passage to the kitchen wing. Strode House, once the stables, now serves as a separate residence with a fountain court. The Arts and Crafts gardens feature white, rose-and-iris and lily gardens, a kitchen garden with fruit trees and a multi-faced sundial. The estate walls and gateways frame views of the Somerset landscape.