Buckhurst Park, East Sussex, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

An 18th century landscape park, enlarged in the early 19th century and improved at that time by both Humphry Repton and Lewis Kennedy, with significant formal gardens laid out in the early 20th century by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Buckhurst Park lies on the south side of the B2110, just to the south-east of Withyham village. The registered site of about 215 hectares comprises 1 hectare of formal gardens, about 23 hectares of pleasure grounds and 190 hectares of parkland, farmland and woodland. St Michael's Church (which contains the Sackville chapel) and a 200 metre wide band of village houses and garden land separate most of the northern boundary of the site from the B2110, although the wood known as The Warren abuts the road for 400 metres in the north-east corner. To the east, the wooded edge of the site meets open farmland while to the south-east, with the exception of several roadside houses in Lye Green, the site is bounded by the B2188. In the south-west corner, the site boundary runs 600 metres due northwards along the course of a stream and then due west along a track. The western boundary is bordered by a narrow strip of arable land and the unclassified road running due south from Withyham to Fishersgate.

The general slope of the site is northwestwards towards the Medway valley, about 1 kilometre to the north. The south-eastern third of the park lies on a high ridge which falls away westwards and north-eastwards to two stream valleys. The western valley stream flows almost due north from the southern site boundary and feeds the main lake before meeting with the stream valley on the north-east side of the ridge, about 200 metres north of the house. The site is surrounded to the west, north and east by farmed ridges and valleys, while to the south and south-west, thickly wooded slopes rise to the highest point of Ashdown Forest about 5 kilometres distant.

REFERENCES used by English Heritage

Country Life 31 (11 May 1912) pp 686-695 (18 May 1912) pp 722-729

I Nairn N Pevsner The Buildings of England: Sussex (1965) J. Brown Gardens of a Golden Afternoon (1982) p 166

G Carter B Goode K Laurie Humphry Repton (1982) p 163

J Woudstra, Buckhurst Park Historic Survey & Outline Proposals (1990)

Maps

T. Marshall A Geographical Description of the Manors of Buckhurst ... of the Rt Hon Sir Thomas Sackville [K]night Lord Buckhurst 1597

W. Figg Plans and Surveys of the Estates in the County of Sussex belonging to the most noble John Frederick Duke of Dorset 1799 (ESRO AMS 5786)

Tithe map for Withyham parish 1841(ESRO)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874

    2nd edition, published 1899

    3rd edition, published 1911

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874

    3rd edition, published 1910 & 1911 (2 sheets)

    Revised edition, published 1931 (1 sheet only)

Description written: March 1997

Revised: July 1998