Montacute, still farther south and on the road from South
Petherton to Yeovil, should be visited if possible. Here is a
beautiful Elizabethan house, the seat of the Phelipses. Its east front
is decorated with an imposing row of heroic statues; its west front is
almost as magnificent. Taken altogether it is perhaps the grandest
Tudor house in the county. The interior well bears out the sumptuous
appearance of the great pile from the outside. A great gallery, one
hundred and eighty feet long, extends through the whole length of the
building, and the hall is equally grand.
[Illustration: MONTACUTE.]
This great house replaces a one-time Cluniac monastery founded in
1102, though in 1407 the establishment abandoned the foreign rule of
Cluny and became an ordinary English Priory. All that is left of the
ancient buildings is a beautiful gateway with turrets and oriels
dating from the fifteenth century. St. Michael's Hill, or "Mons
Acutus," is remarkably like Glastonbury in outline, and is the scene
of a wonderful legend. Here was found the sacred Rood that was
eventually taken in the days of Canute to distant Waltham in Essex,
where afterwards there arose the great Abbey of the Holy Cross.
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