About
Petworth House stands as one of the supreme achievements of English country house culture — a vast late seventeenth-century mansion set in a magnificent 700-acre deer park landscaped by Capability Brown, containing one of the greatest private art collections ever assembled in Britain. The house dominates the small market town of Petworth in West Sussex, its long western façade of Portland stone stretching for nearly 300 feet in a bold and austere statement of aristocratic power and artistic ambition.
The house was largely rebuilt in the 1680s and 1690s by Charles Seymour, the 6th Duke of Somerset — known in his own time as 'the Proud Duke' — and passed through inheritance to the Percy family and then to the Wyndham family, Earls of Egremont, in whose ownership the collections were enormously enriched during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751–1837) who dominates the story of Petworth, a man of extraordinary energy and liberality who ran the house as a salon for artists, writers, and intellectuals and who accumulated the paintings, sculptures, and carvings that make Petworth so remarkable today.
The painting collection at Petworth is of international importance. Nineteen works by J.M.W. Turner — the largest single-house collection of his work anywhere in the world — hang in the rooms where they were created, Turner having been a regular and beloved guest of Lord Egremont for over two decades. The sight of Turner's luminous landscapes and historical paintings in the rooms that inspired them is one of the most extraordinary experiences available to any lover of British art. Alongside the Turners are works by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Blake, Claude, and dozens of other masters, displayed in a density and profusion that reflects the Victorian ideal of the picture gallery.
The carving at Petworth is equally celebrated. Grinling Gibbons, the greatest woodcarver of the baroque period, produced some of his finest and most elaborate work here, and the limewood carvings in the Carved Room — garlands of flowers, fruit, game birds, fish, and musical instruments executed with breathtaking technical virtuosity — are among the supreme achievements of English decorative art. The marble sculptures collected by the 3rd Earl, including ancient Roman pieces and works by Flaxman and other neoclassical masters, add another dimension to the richness of the collection.
The park at Petworth, shaped by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown in the 1750s, is one of his masterworks — a sweeping landscape of ancient trees, undulating grassland, and a great lake that Turner painted repeatedly. The park is open to visitors on foot throughout the year and is home to a large herd of fallow deer that has occupied it for centuries. The National Trust has managed Petworth since 1947.
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Highlights
Nineteen Turners — The Greatest Collection in Any House
Petworth holds nineteen paintings by J. M. W.
Turner — the largest collection of his work in any single house in the world — displayed in the rooms where they were painted during Turner's extended visits as a favoured guest of Lord Egremont in the 1820s and 1830s. The works range from intimate studies of the house's interiors and the evening light falling on the park, to large-scale historical and mythological compositions of great ambition and beauty.
Seeing these luminous, visionary paintings in the very rooms and landscapes that inspired them is one of the most powerful experiences available to any lover of British art, creating a loop of place and image that Turner intended and that time has deepened.
The Grinling Gibbons Carved Room
The Carved Room at Petworth contains the most elaborate and technically accomplished example of Grinling Gibbons's woodcarving genius to survive in an English house. The limewood carvings — executed in the 1690s with a virtuosity that has never been surpassed — frame a sequence of portraits in cascading garlands of flowers, fruit, game birds, fish, shells, and musical instruments, each element carved with such precision that individual species of flower can be identified.
Gibbons worked in limewood because of its fine grain and light colour, and the Petworth carvings display the full range of his extraordinary skill: from delicate petals and feathers that seem to flutter in any breath of air to robust trophy arrangements of remarkable three-dimensional depth.
The Old Masters and Portrait Collection
Beyond the Turners, Petworth's painting collection is one of the richest in any house open to the public in England. The North Gallery and the principal rooms are hung with works by Van Dyck — including several of his finest English portraits — alongside paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Titian, Claude Lorrain, William Blake, and many others.
The density of the hanging, with paintings arranged frame-to-frame in the Victorian manner, reflects the collecting ambition of the 3rd Earl of Egremont and his predecessors over three centuries.
The collection has remained largely intact since the nineteenth century and retains the character of a living collection rather than a curated museum display.
The Capability Brown Deer Park
The park at Petworth is one of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown's acknowledged masterworks, laid out in the 1750s and covering approximately 700 acres of undulating downland with ancient trees, a great serpentine lake, and the sweeping vistas that characterise Brown's mature style. The park is freely accessible on foot throughout the year and is home to a large herd of fallow deer — a feature of the Petworth estate since medieval times — whose presence in the landscape has inspired painters from Turner to the present day.
The park provides one of the great walks in southern England, with changing views of the house, the lake, and the surrounding countryside at every turn.
Collections
The State Rooms and Art Collection
The principal rooms of Petworth House, including the Marble Hall, the Square Dining Room, the North Gallery, the Carved Room, and the Beauty Room, displayed with their original paintings, sculpture, furniture, and decorative arts — one of the finest collections of any house in National Trust care.
The Victorian Kitchen
The historic kitchen quarters of Petworth, preserved and interpreted to illustrate the scale and organisation of Victorian domestic service in one of England's great country houses.
Current Exhibitions
The park and pleasure grounds are managed for year-round interest, with seasonal events including guided walks, Turner-related programming, and specialist art history talks offered throughout the visiting season.