Parham Park is an Elizabethan house in Cootham

Cootham

Cootham is a hamlet in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the A283 road 0.9 miles west of Storrington.Cootham's population numbers around 200 and there is one public house named The Crown, parts of which date from 1555. As a well known coaching inn 'The Crown' had its own...

, between Storrington

Storrington

Storrington is a village in the Horsham District of West Sussex, England, and one of two in the civil parish of Storrington and Sullington. Storrington lies at the foot of the north side of the South Downs. As of 2006 the village has a population of around 4,600. It has one main shopping street...

 and Pulborough

Pulborough

Pulborough is a large village and civil parish in the Horsham district of West Sussex, England, with some 5,000 inhabitants. It is located almost centrally within West Sussex and is south west of London. It is at the junction of the north-south A29 and the east-west roads.The village is near the...

, West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

, South East

South East England

South East England is one of the nine official regions of England, designated in 1994 and adopted for statistical purposes in 1999. It consists of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex...

 England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, originally owned by the Monastery of Westminster and granted to Robert Palmer by King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 in 1540.

The foundation stone was laid in 1577 by the two year old Thomas Palmer, and Parham has been a family home ever since. In 1922 the Hon. Clive Pearson, younger son of Viscount Cowdray

Viscount Cowdray

Viscount Cowdray, of Cowdray in the County of West Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1917 for the industrialist Weetman Pearson, 1st Baron Cowdray, head of the Pearson conglomerate...

, bought Parham from Mary,17th Baroness Zouche in her own right, and he and his wife Alicia opened the house to visitors in 1948, after the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 when it had also been home to evacuee children and Canadian soldiers. Off the Long Gallery at the top of the house there is a fascinating exhibition which touches on the period between 1922 and 1948, with many family photographs as well as photographs of the building works which took place during that time.

Mr and Mrs Pearson, followed by their daughter Veronica Tritton, spent more than 60 years carefully restoring Parham and filling it with a sensitively chosen collection of beautiful old furniture, paintings and textiles, also acquiring items originally in the house. There is a particularly important collection of early needlework

Needlework

Needlework is a broad term for the handicrafts of decorative sewing and textile arts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework...

. What they created at Parham is a rare survival of mid 20th Century connoisseurship within a major Elizabethan house.

Now owned by a charitable trust

Charitable trust

A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes, and is a more specific term than "charitable organization".-United States:...

, Parham House and Gardens are surrounded by some 875 acres (3.5 km²) of working agricultural and forestry land.

Deer park

Around the house stretches 300 acres (1.2 km²) of ancient deer park

Medieval deer park

A medieval deer park was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank. The ditch was typically on the inside, thus allowing deer to enter the park but preventing them from leaving.-History:...

 whose Fallow Deer

Fallow Deer

The Fallow Deer is a ruminant mammal belonging to the family Cervidae. This common species is native to western Eurasia, but has been introduced widely elsewhere. It often includes the rarer Persian Fallow Deer as a subspecies , while others treat it as an entirely different species The Fallow...

 are descendants of the original herd first recorded in 1628. This area had been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest

Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...

. It has special biological interest for its epiphytic

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

 lichen

Lichen

Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...

flora, as an area for two rare beetles and its large heronry.

External links

• Parham House and Gardens - official site