Buckhurst Park, East Sussex, England

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

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

The present house and estate of Buckhurst Park took its name only in the early 19th century. The Sackville family owned both the separate but neighbouring parks of Buckhurst and Stoneland (the former from the 11th century) in the medieval period. Until the early 17th century, the family lived at Buckhurst Place in Buckhurst Park but moved from the house in 1609 to their estate at Knole. The outer court buildings of Buckhurst Place became the house now known as Old Buckhurst. Although it lacked a family house until the end of the 17th century, the Sackvilles retained and continued to enlarge the estate formed by the two separate parks.

By the mid 1720s, Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset and grandson of the 5th Earl, is recorded as living at Stoneland Park and planting the park landscape. His son, Lord George Sackville, was court-martialled after the Battle of Minden (1759) but was eventually raised to the peerage in 1782 as Viscount Sackville. Stoneland was his principal home (although never owned by him) until his death in 1785. The Sackville estates passed to his nephew, the 3rd Duke of Dorset whose son's widow married Charles, Lord Whitworth. Humphry Repton was engaged by Lord Whitworth in 1805 to advise on improving both the landscape and the house, producing a Red Book for Buckhurst in February 1806. Lady Whitworth also amalgamated the two parks and renamed the house Buckhurst Park. She later invited Lewis Kennedy to design new walks, a Swiss bridge and woodland improvements (plans dated 1819 at Buckhurst Park). Lady Whitworth died in 1826 and the estate was inherited by her daughter, Lady Elizabeth Sackville, Countess De La Warr. In the early 20th century, Buckhurst Park was leased from the De La Warr family by Mr and Mrs Robert Benson, for whom Sir Edwin Lutyens designed additions to the house and a new formal garden. Gertrude Jekyll provided planting plans. In 1952, it was again occupied by the Sackville family and the estate remains in private ownership.