Images: Penshurst from Italian garden; exterior detail of great hall; great hall interior, great hall ceiling and corbel detail; stair from great hall to gallery (photos: C.A. Stanford)
Acquired: 1521
A property of the Duke of Buckingham, Penshurst was a fourteenth-century fortified manor house. It came to the Crown with several other estates (including Thornhill) upon the Duke’s execution for treason. The king paid for some repairs in 1525 and apparently again in 1543, but did not make it the object of any major construction work. He did visit in 1541. The house was granted to the courtier Sir William Sidney under Edward VI, in whose family’s possession it still remains. It has been heavily restored in the nineteenth century and is now open to the public.