Parham House

Parham House stands in West Sussex within the South Downs National Park. The Grade I-listed Elizabethan country house was begun in 1577 for the Palmer family on the site of an earlier fortified manor. The estate includes historic gardens, parkland, woodland and a fallow deer park at the foot of the Downs. The house and its stables and laundry wing are both listed Grade I, while the surrounding park and gardens are registered Grade II*. Much of the wider estate is designated as a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest noted for its lichen flora, relict bog, rare beetles and heronry. The house has been owned by several notable families, including the Bisshopps and the Zouches, and was restored in the 20th century by Clive Pearson and architect Albert Victor Heal. During the Second World War, it housed evacuee children and later accommodated Canadian soldiers. The house first opened regularly to the public in 1948. Parham contains collections of historic furniture, paintings, books, textiles, clocks, rugs and carpets assembled during the 20th-century restoration. Visitors find a house built of malmstone, Hythe sandstone, Pulborough sandrock and ferricrete rubble with a Horsham slab roof. The principal south front is E-shaped with projecting gabled wings and a central porch. The top floor contains the Long Gallery, a room of about 48 m lit by dormer windows with a painted ceiling designed by Oliver Messel. The 18th-century stables and laundry wing form a courtyard north of the house. The registered landscape covers about 152 hectares, with formal gardens, parkland, woodland and lakes surrounding the house. A resident herd of about 200 fallow deer grazes the open parkland.