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. Ultimately, as a financial enterprise, opening to the public failed. In 1992, after owning the house for almost 300 years, the family sold Brympton d'Evercy. The situation was summed up at the time by the satirist Auberon Waugh: "Last week we learnt that the most beautiful house in Somerset has been sold.... It is sad of course for the family who owned it, who had made a valiant effort to keep it going.... 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. So now the most beautiful house in England will be a private family home once again...." In the 21st century The house now stands in 33 acres (13.4 ha) of parkland. In 2008, it was sold to a company, whose plans for covering the costs of maintaining Brympton were to hire it out for weddings and corporate events. The directors hoped ultimately that the property would become something like Babbington House, a country club and hotel near Frome. Marriages can take place at St Andrew's Church nearby or in the house. Receptions and functions can also be held in the grounds, including the 17th-century stables, and there are 31 bedrooms available for such occasions. Brympton d'Evercy has also been hired as a film location. The gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. For the greater part of the year, the house remains a little-known home. The greatest threat to the house, now without its former estate, is the ever encroaching town of Yeovil. Once some miles distant, its suburbs and industrial estates are now almost visible from the windows of the house. 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. In popular culture The Turn of the Screw, a 2009 adaptation by the