Since the Reformation the 13th @-@ century Hanging Chapel in Langport have been a town hall , courthouse , grammar school , museum , and armoury before becoming a masonic hall in 1891 . The house known as The Abbey in Charlton Mackrell take its name from the site on which it was built , the Chantry Chapel of the Holy Spirit , founded in 1237 . Naish Priory , built around 1400 in East Coker , was never a priory , and similarly the Abbey Farm House and Abbey Barn in Yeovil which date from around 1420 , have always been in lay @-@ ownership ; " abbey " was added to their names in the 19th century . The 140 @-@ foot ( 43 m ) Burton Pynsent Monument was designed in 1757 , by Capability Brown for William Pitt , as a monument to Sir William Pynsent . King Alfred 's Tower , a 161 feet ( 49 m ) high , triangular edifice , stand near Egbert 's stone , where it is believed that Alfred the Great , King of Wessex , rallied the Saxons in May 878 before the Battle of Ethandun . The towers funder , Henry Hoare , planned for it to commemorate the end of the Seven Years ' War against France and the accession of King George III . The other Grade I listed buildings in South Somerset are manor houses , built over long periods by local Lords of the Manor . The Tudor Barrington Court was the first country house acquired by the National Trust , in 1907 , on the recommendation of the antiquarian Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley . Newton Surmaville was built between 1608 and 1612 for Robert Harbin , a Yeovil merchant , on the site of an earlier building , but was extensively altered and enhanced in the 1870s . Lytes Cary and its associated chapel and gardens have parts dating to as early as the 14th century . The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner praised it , saying " Yet all parts blend to perfection with one another and with the gentle sunny landscape that surround them . " The 17th @-@ century house at Tintinhull is surrounded by a small 20th @-@ century Arts and Crafts garden . Ven House , which stand on an artificially raised terrace , have a rectangular plan of seven bays by five bays , and is built of red brick in Flemish bond , with local Hamstone dressings ; its north and south fronts are divided by two giant Corinthian pilasters . The small William and Mary style house was completed sometime between 1698 and 1700 . It was enlarged between 1725 and 1730 by Decimus Burton , who provided a new drawing @-@ room for Sir W. Medleycott and also an orangery attached to the house . Brympton d 'Evercy , built in stages between about 1220 and the 18th century , have been described , by Auberon Waugh , as " the most beautiful house in England " .