Cowdray House, (also known as Cowdray Ruins), Midhurst, England

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

Remnants of the layout and built features of 16th- and early 17th-century formal gardens surrounding the ruins of a Tudor house, altered and extended by Lancelot Brown in the late 18th century and set within a 16th century park, also improved by Brown, which contains, at about 1.5km from the ruins, a Victorian house with associated formal and woodland gardens of early 19th-century origin.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The registered site of Cowdray House lies either side of the A272 Petworth to Midhurst road, on the east side of Midhurst and Easebourne. The roughly 355-hectare site comprises around 17 hectares of formal gardens and pleasure grounds and around 238 hectares of parkland, farmland and woodland, a golf course and sports fields. The south-west corner occupies the north-east side of the level valley floor of the east-flowing River Rother, from which it extends north-eastwards up the undulating, south-facing slopes of a sandstone ridge. North of the A272, the upper slopes of the park are enclosed by agricultural fencing from the surrounding landscape of wooded farmland and enjoy panoramic views southwards to the South Downs. South of the A272, Easebourne Lane (A286) abuts the western boundary while the buildings and gardens of Midhurst and Easebourne and the wooded slopes of St Ann's Hill form the setting in the south-west corner. To the south and south-east, the site's wooded farmland and meadow land along the river merge into a similar, surrounding landscape.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

J A E Roundell, Cowdray: the History of a Great English House (1884)

Victoria History of the County of Sussex IV, (1907), pp 49-50

I Nairn and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Sussex (1965), pp 195-8

D Ray, Cowdray Ruins: a short History and Guide, guidebook, (nd)

S Barson, Cowdray Ruins, Easebourne, Midhurst, West Sussex: an Assessment of Documentary Sources, (English Heritage Historical and Research Team 1997)

C Beresford, Cowdray Park: Chronological Development of the Landscape, (nd) [copy on EH file]

Gazetteer to Draft Conservation Plan (Cultural Heritage Consultants (CHC) 1998)

Maps

T Heather, A Survey of certaine lands ... in Sussex, 1712, (CA 1645), (West Sussex Record Office)

R Budgen, An Actual Survey of the County of Sussex ..., 1/2" to 1 mile, 1724

W Gardner and T Gream, A Topographical map of the County of Sussex ..., 1" to 1 mile, 1795

OS Preliminary drawings for the 1st edition, 2" to 1 mile, 1808

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1874-5; 2nd edition surveyed 1896, published 1898; 3rd edition surveyed 1910, published 1913; 1950 edition

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1875; 3rd edition surveyed 1910, published 1912

Illustrations

S H Grimm, Views of Cowdray, (British Museum map library and Society of Antiquaries)

Archival items

Lancelot Brown's account book are held at the RHS Lindley Library.

Other material relating to Cowdray is held in the Cowdray Archive, to which there is a two-volume index (A A Dibben (ed), 1960, West Sussex Record Office, Chichester).
 

Description written: May 1998

Amended: January 2000

Edited: June 2000