week was £2000 for a Chinese dinner service... many of the pieces being badly damaged... a pair of Chippendale mirrors £1,350... a small carpet £800". And so the list continued, detailing the prices fetched for Brympton d'Evercy's former treasures, including first editions of works by Charles Dickens and Daniel Defoe. On the last day of the sale an iron garden seat was sold for £14. Prices for the paintings are not recorded in the article except one of those "after" Vandyck, which fetched £85. Clare School The Clive-Ponsonby-Fane family retained a few of the family portraits and smaller items of furniture and in 1957, after the sale, moved into a smaller house nearby. The big house stood empty for two years before being let to Clare School in 1959. Clare School taught boys, both as boarders and day pupils aged 13–18, and also had its own prep school at Coker Court, East Coker, for boys from the age of seven. Nicholas Clive-Ponsonby-Fane continued to own the house and what remained of the estate until his sudden death in 1963, at the age of 49. The estate then passed into the possession of his widow Petronilla Clive-Ponsonby-Fane and their son Charles (born 1941). He took over control of his inheritance after his mother remarried in 1967. Meanwhile, Clare School continued its use of the main house until 1974, when it moved to Crowcombe Court, also in Somerset, which it occupied between 1974 and 1976. The Clive-Ponsonby-Fanes In 1974, Charles Clive-Ponsonby-Fane married Judy Bushby and reclaimed his ancestral home. With his new wife, he moved back into Brympton d'Evercy, with the plan of restoring it and opening it to the public as a stately home. His problem was that, while the empty and neglected house may have been his home, it was far from stately. The house was structurally in a fair condition, but it had not been redecorated since the 18th century and had endured the obvious ravages caused by its use as a boys' school for some 15 years. The redecoration of the state rooms was done on a very limited budget. The principal problem facing the owners was furnishing the house. Few of its former contents remained, and while Brympton d'Evercy is not on a par with Blenheim Palace in size, it still required large items and quantities of high-quality antique furniture, and this proved to be the stumbling