Parham in Autumn

"Nothing at Parham is superfluous, nothing unloved. It is a house of magic." (Simon Jenkins, England's Thousand Best Houses)

"An English house - gray twilight pour'd / On dewy pastures, dewy trees, / Softer than sleep - all things in order stored, / A haunt of ancient peace." (Tennyson, The Palace of Art)

Simon Jenkins considers Parham House to be not just among England's thousand best, or even among its hundred best. He considers it to be among its twenty best, on a par with Chatsworth, Blenheim and Hardwick Hall. To me it is superior to those, eschewing military pomp and showy boastfulness; 'a haunt of ancient peace' indeed. Built in 1577 before the era of Elizabethan 'prodigy houses' like Hardwick, it is straightforward and sober in design, but the interiors are Elizabethan and Jacobean at their finest. Sunday 13 October will be the last time it opens in 2024, and we'll walk three and a half miles to get there from Amberley Station on my first go at a Cultural & Heritage event.

The chief points of interest at Parham House and Park are:

• The deer park, which is a chase of big trees and bracken with the bare South Downs behind as a dramatic backdrop.
• A classic Elizabethan E-shaped plan, although the east wing has been much altered and was restored to its Tudor design in the twentieth century.
• The Great Hall with bay windows from floor to ceiling, flooding the heraldry and portraits with light. 
• A picture collection of Tudor royalty and statesmen, including the famous portrait of the doomed Henry, Prince of Wales being pursued by winged Time from 1611.
• The Saloon, designed and decorated in 1790, so bringing the Georgian era to the building.
• The Green Room, dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, explorer and president of The Royal Society. His portrait is by Joshua Reynolds and there are paintings of exotic animals by George Stubbs.
• The Long Gallery, which stretches the length of the South Front and was designed for indoor exercise. The vista down the gallery is superb. 
• The gardens are seven acres of Pleasure Grounds, laid out in the 18th century, with a lake, a brick and turf maze and many specimen trees.
• The Walled Garden contains romantic wide herbaceous borders, a rose garden, a cut flower garden, a vegetable garden, and an orchard. The Greenhouse has a fine display of pelargoniums.
• The finest collection of historic needlework outside of London.
• Fresh floral arrangements in every room for the duration of the season.

If we set off from Amberley at 11.00, we should reach Parham by 12.20. The gardens will be open then, so we can explore those and have lunch. The house opens at 14.00. 

The cost of entrance to the house and gardens is £15.50 or £14.50 for concessions. Parham is privately owned, so unfortunately National Trust or English Heritage memberships won't be of use. Historic Houses members can gain free admission, however, and RHS members can gain free admission to the gardens, and the house for an extra £4.

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(Picture credits: Parham House: Photo © Leimonide (cc-by/2.0) Parham House from the east end of the Ha-Ha: Photo © Michael Garlick (cc-by-sa/2.0); Parham House and Garden: Box hedge borders: Photo © Michael Garlick (cc-by-sa/2.0); The courtyard of Parham House: Photo © David Smith (cc-by-sa/2.0); Parham House: Photo © Martin Horsfall (cc-by-sa/2.0). The images are copyrighted but are above credited to their copyright holders and are licensed for further reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0). The other pictures were taken by OutdoorLads leader/member Alex Young, and are used with his kind permission.)