At Barrington Court and White Lackington manor-house, both near
Ilminster, Monmouth was entertained in princely state during his
progress through the western counties to win popularity. The latter is
a plain gabled house (a portion only of the original) which has
suffered by the insertion of sash windows. It seems to bear out its
name, for it is very white and staring. But Barrington is one of the most perfect Elizabethan houses in Somersetshire, that is to say
exteriorly, for the inside has long since been stripped and
modernised. The myriad of
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pinnacles upon its gable ends, and its general appearance, recall the
stately Sussex mansion Wakehurst: the situation, however, is vastly
different, for it stands bare of trees on a wide extensive flat. The
Spekes of White Lackington and the Strodes of Barrington, it goes
without saying, were notorious Whigs; and though the duke's hosts
favoured his cause, they both managed to save their necks when the
terrible Jeffreys came down upon his memorable Progress. But the
name of Speke was enough for the judge, and the youngest son of
White Lackington, whose sins did not extend beyond shaking hands
with his father's illustrious guest, was swung up on a tree at Ilminster.
In the lovely fields around the manor-house it is difficult to imagine a
throng of twenty thousand who accompanied the popular duke. The
giant Spanish chestnut tree beneath which Monmouth dined in public,
and which had braved the tempests of many centuries, fell, alas! a
victim to the storm of March, 2, 1897, and with the destruction of
"Monmouth's tree" a link with 1680 has departed never to return.
Barrington, we understand, has recently been taken under the
protecting wing of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient
Buildings, for which all those interested in domestic architecture as
well as buildings of historic association must feel grateful.