| Plumpton Place | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Manor house |
| Location | Plumpton |
| Coordinates | 50°54′16″N0°04′00″W / 50.9044°N 0.0666°W |
| OS grid reference | TQ 36045 13453 |
| Area | East Sussex |
| Built | 1568 |
| Architectural style(s) | Elizabethan |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Official name | Plumpton Place |
| Designated | 17 March 1952 |
| Reference no. | 1274171 |
  Location of Plumpton Place in East Sussex | |
Plumpton Place is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Plumpton, East Sussex, England. [1]
Plumpton Place looks onto the nearby north-facing escarpment of the South Downs, with Plumpton College (formerly Plumpton Agricultural College) and the 11th-century church of St Michael's and All Angels immediately adjacent to the west and Plumpton village some 500m to the east. There is an entrance formed of two cottages designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with a Palladian porch and this leads to his modern bridge over the moat.
It was built in 1568 on the site of an earlier house which was mentioned in the Domesday Book. The North and South parts of the house date from the 1400s, some of which incorporates local flint.
Various building materials have been used in the construction of the house. It is believed that the north wing is the earliest, as there is a date-stone of 1568 with the initials I.M. The west wing seems to date from a later period, circa 1600. Over a hundred years later there was a period of rebuilding in brick and some additions by Lutyens. There are lakeside gardens by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, within large grounds, that include both woodland and pasture.
Plumpton Place was formerly the home of George Miles Watson, 2nd Baron Manton (1899–1968), who maintained a race-horse stud there.
In 1927, it was purchased by Edward Hudson, the founder of Country Life magazine. Hudson initiated a major restoration of the property, which had gone into a state of disrepair, by hiring Lutyens to revamp the main house and mill house, and Jekyll to oversee the 60 acres of land and lakes. [2]
In 1969, a doctor bought the property after the previous owner – a woman with a distaste for longhaired rock stars – refused to sell it to George Harrison of the Beatles and his wife Pattie Boyd. Three years later, however, the same doctor sold it to Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. [2] The latter owned the property from 1972 to 1985. [3] The American financier Thomas Perkins owned Plumpton Place for many years. [4]
Plumpton Place was used as the main location for the 2019 film adaptation of Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu.[ citation needed ]
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials and public buildings. In his biography, the writer Christopher Hussey wrote, "In his lifetime (Lutyens) was widely held to be our greatest architect since Wren if not, as many maintained, his superior". The architectural historian Gavin Stamp described him as "surely the greatest British architect of the twentieth century".
Castle Drogo is a country house and mixed-revivalist castle near Drewsteignton, Devon, England. Constructed between 1911 and 1930, it was the last castle to be built in England. The client was Julius Drewe, the hugely successful founder of the Home and Colonial Stores. Drewe chose the site in the belief that it formed part of the lands of his supposed medieval ancestor, Drogo de Teigne. The architect he chose to realise his dream was Edwin Lutyens, then at the height of his career. Lutyens lamented Drewe's determination to have a castle but nevertheless produced one of his finest buildings. The architectural critic Christopher Hussey described the result: "The ultimate justification of Drogo is that it does not pretend to be a castle. It is a castle, as a castle is built, of granite, on a mountain, in the twentieth century".
Gertrude Jekyll was a British horticulturist, garden designer, craftswoman, photographer, writer and artist. She created over 400 gardens in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, and wrote over 1000 articles for magazines such as Country Life and William Robinson's The Garden. Jekyll has been described as "a premier influence in garden design" by British and American gardening enthusiasts.
Ashby St Ledgers is a village in the West Northamptonshire district of Northamptonshire, England. The post town is Rugby in Warwickshire. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 173. The Manor House is famous for being a location for the planning of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. As of 2023, the property had been restored and could be rented for a fee.
Sulhamstead is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. It occupies an approximate rectangle of land south of the (Old) Bath Road (A4) between Reading, its nearest town and Thatcham. It has several small clusters of homes and woodland covering about a fifth of the land, in the centre and north beside which is Thames Valley Police's main Training Centre at Sulhamstead House. Its main amenities are its Church of England parish church and a shop and visitor centre by the Kennet & Avon Canal.
Lindisfarne Castle is a 16th-century castle located on Holy Island, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England, much altered by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1901. The island is accessible from the mainland at low tide by means of a causeway.
Plumpton is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. The village is located five miles (8 km) north-west of Lewes. The parish measures 6.5 miles in length on its north–south axis and 1 mile at its widest on the B2116 Underhill Road. The southern half of the parish lies within the South Downs National Park and at the highest point, 214m (702 feet), the South Downs Way traverses the crest of Plumpton Plain. The parish includes the small village of Plumpton adjacent to the Downs and to the north the larger village of Plumpton Green where most of the community and services are based. Plumpton is known for its race course, and also Plumpton College, which farms over 2500 acres of land and has become one of the leading centres for land-based education in the UK.
Deanery Garden is an Arts and Crafts style house and garden in Sonning, Berkshire, England. The house was designed and built by architect Edwin Lutyens between 1899 and 1901. It is a Grade I listed building. The gardens—laid out by Lutyens and planted by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll—are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Edward Burgess Hudson (1854–1936) was the founder of Country Life magazine in 1897.
Goddards is a Grade II*-listed house in Abinger Common, Surrey, England. It was designed by Edwin Lutyens in 1898–1900 in the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement. It was built "as a home of rest to which ladies of small means might repair for holiday" for shipping magnate Frederick Mirrielees. The west-facing courtyard garden was designed by Gertrude Jekyll. In 1910, Lutyens extended the building and adapted it as a private residence.
Stoke College in Stoke-by-Clare, near Haverhill, Suffolk, England, is a co-educational day school for children aged 11 to 18, with boarding for children aged 11 to 18. It is built on the site of a major medieval monastic college.
Seale is a village in Surrey, England. Seale covers most of the civil parish of Seale and Sands and the steep slope and foot of the south side of the Hog's Back as well as a large hill which exceeds it – as such is part of the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Linden Lodge School for the Blind is a specialist sensory and physical college located in Wimbledon, South London, England. It educates visually impaired children aged between two and nineteen, including those who are multi-disabled visually impaired.
Buckhurst Park is an English country house and landscaped park in Withyham, East Sussex. It is the seat of William Sackville, 11th Earl De La Warr.
Munstead Wood is a Grade I listed house and garden in Munstead Heath, Busbridge, on the boundary of the town of Godalming in Surrey, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of the town centre. The garden was created by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, and became widely known through her books and prolific articles in magazines such as Country Life. The Arts and Crafts style house, in which Jekyll lived from 1897 to 1932, was designed by architect Edwin Lutyens to complement the garden.
Orchards is an Arts and Crafts style house in Bramley in Surrey, England. It is on Bramley's boundary with Busbridge and 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of Godalming town centre. Described by English Heritage as the first major work of architect Edwin Lutyens, it is a Grade I listed building. The gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The property is privately owned.
Heathcote is a Neoclassical-style villa in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, England. Designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, it was his first comprehensive use of that style, making it the precursor of his later public buildings in Edwardian Baroque style and those of New Delhi. It was completed in 1908.
Tigbourne Court is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Wormley, Surrey, England, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Witley. It was designed by architect Edwin Lutyens, using a mixture of 17th-century style vernacular architecture and classical elements, and has been called "probably his best" building, for its architectural geometry, wit and texture. It was completed in 1901. English Heritage have designated it a Grade I listed building.
Marshcourt, also spelled Marsh Court, is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Marsh Court, near Stockbridge, Hampshire, England. It is constructed from quarried chalk. Designed and built by architect Edwin Lutyens between 1901 and 1905, it is a Grade I listed building. The gardens, designed by Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Folly Farm is an Arts and Crafts style country house in Sulhamstead, West Berkshire, England. Built around a small farmhouse dating to c. 1650, the house was substantially extended in William and Mary style by architect Edwin Lutyens c. 1906, and further extended by him in vernacular style c. 1912. It is a Grade I listed building. The gardens, designed by Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll, are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. They are among the best-known gardens of the Lutyens/Jekyll partnership.
