while the lower for servants had no internal means of reaching the upper floor, to which access was obtained by a newel staircase in a turret opening outside. 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 siting of the garderobes here facing the church reinforces the idea that this was the rear of the house; no such arrangement would have been made if this were truly the Priest's House. In the 17th century its principal room on the upper storey was given a decorative plaster ceiling. Upstairs is a tessellated Roman pavement of blue lias limestone and red tile. This was excavated in 1923 by Ralegh Radford from a building near Westland Road in Yeovil. The North or Henry VIII wing The next major addition to the house was the north wing ("C" on plan). Its turret, oriels and external sculpted moulding make it almost a miniature country house in itself. This wing has remained largely unchanged since it was built about 1520. John Sydenham wished to retain an independent lodging at the house after its handover. He built for himself three floors with a room on each, its own external entrance and staircase turret – a house within a house. Architecturally it must have been strikingly modern at the time. The façade is richly ornamented with coats-of-arms and tracery. The roof line is castellated, the battlements purely for ornament, not defence. The two upper floors have large oriel windows; between these is the finely sculpted the coat of arms of King Henry VIII. This the Sydenhams were permitted displaying due to their relationship to the Stourton family, who claimed connections with the blood royal. Thus this part of the house is sometimes called the Henry VIII wing, though the King never visited. Of all the house's varied wings, this north is probably the most architecturally accomplished, displaying the most up-to-date traits and flamboyance of contemporary Tudor architecture. West Front The central section of the west front contains on the ground floor the hall (marked "A" on the plan); the rear section of the hall almost certainly was once the great hall of the original smaller d'Evercy manor rebuilt by the Sydenhams in 1450. The great hall, though, did not achieve its present size until the