Uppark House and Garden

Enjoy a day at this elegant Georgian country house perched on a vantage point high on the South Downs ridge, commanding views as far south as the English Channel. The grounds comprise around 5 hectares of ornamental gardens, and 357 hectares of parkland and wooded farmland.

We will begin with a garden history tour, then we are free to explore the house with its opulent interiors, decorated with antique furniture, ornaments and paintings (please note there is NO guided tour of the house), and to revisit the grounds which, in addition to the formal gardens, offer a variety of walks through the meadow with its mown paths, or through woodland.

Uppark was built around 1690 in the fashionable Anglo-Dutch royal court style for Ford Grey, 1st Earl of Tankerville. The design is attributed to William Talman, architect and collector, one of the most influential designers of the late 17th C. A descendant, Charles Tankerville later inherited the estate and in 1747 sold it on to Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh whose ownership saw perhaps the most extensive period of change. He and his wife, Sarah, spent over £16,000 (around £1.8 million today) transforming the house and, during a Grand Tour of Europe from 1749–51, the couple bought many works of art. Sarah also brought to Uppark, from her family, one of the best surviving 18th-century English dolls’ houses (currently on loan to the Huguenot Museum, Rochester).

After Sir Matthew's death in 1774, his son Sir Harry took over the estate and, keen to adapt Uppark to his vision of a party venue, he engaged Humphry Repton to make a series of alterations detailed in 1810 in one of his famous Red Books. The main entrance was moved to the north front in 1812-13, where a Portland stone portico was added, leading via a stained glass-lit corridor to the crimson baize door that opens onto Staircase Hall. The book also detailed other intriguing features such as a series of colonnades linking the house to the service buildings, an informal cottage garden, and a more formal rose garden with pergolas, although no evidence survives to suggest these were ever implemented. In 1931 the estate passed to Sir Herbert Meade who undertook major repairs. In 1954 the property was conferred to the National Trust.

In more recent history, the storms of 1987-1990 caused the loss of 80% of Uppark’s mature trees, including the specimen beeches along the north driveway. These were replaced with Acer platanoides (Norway Maple). Then, in 1989, two upper storeys of the house were damaged by a fire (started by a spark from a workman’s tool), just a few days before works on the roof were due to be completed. The National Trust decided at that point that future restorations of Uppark should portray a more historically accurate representation of the house and gardens as they would have been during the time of Repton and Sir Harry, when they were considered to be at their zenith.

Photo credit: National Trust images