Plumpton Place is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Plumpton, East Sussex, England.

Description

Plumpton Place looks onto the nearby north-facing escarpment of the South Downs, with Plumpton College (formerly Plumpton Agricultural College) and the 11th-century church of St Michael's and All Angels immediately adjacent to the west and Plumpton village some 500m to the east. There is an entrance formed of two cottages designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with a Palladian porch and this leads to his modern bridge over the moat. It was built in 1568 on the site of an earlier house which was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. The North and South parts of the house date from the 1400s, some of which incorporates local flint. Various building materials have been used in the construction of the house. It is believed that the north wing is the earliest, as there is a date-stone of 1568 with the initials I.M. The west wing seems to date from a later period, circa 1600. Over a hundred years later there was a period of rebuilding in brick and some additions by Lutyens. There are lakeside gardens by

Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...

and Gertrude Jekyll, within large grounds, that include both woodland and pasture.

Past owners

Plumpton Place was formerly the home of George Miles Watson, 2nd Baron Manton (1899–1968), who maintained a race-horse stud there. In 1927, it was purchased by Edward Hudson, the founder of '' Country Life'' magazine. Hudson initiated a major restoration of the property, which had gone into a state of disrepair, by hiring Lutyens to revamp the main house and mill house, and Jekyll to oversee the 60 acres of land and lakes. In 1969, a doctor bought the property after the previous owner – a woman with a distaste for longhaired rock stars – refused to sell it to George Harrison of

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

and his wife Pattie Boyd. Three years later, however, the same doctor sold it to

Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin were an English rock music, rock band formed in London in 1968. The band comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones (musician), John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham. With a he ...

guitarist

Jimmy Page James Patrick Page (born 9 January 1944) is an English musician and producer who achieved international success as the guitarist and founder of the Rock music, rock band Led Zeppelin. Page began his career as a studio session musician in Lo ...

. The latter owned the property from 1972 to 1985. The American financier Thomas Perkins owned Plumpton Place for many years. Plumpton Place was used as the main location for the 2019 film adaptation of ''

Carmilla ''Carmilla'' is an 1872 Gothic fiction, Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It is one of the earliest known works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'' (1897) by 25 years. First published ...

'' by Sheridan Le Fanu.

References

Country houses in East Sussex Grade II* listed buildings in East Sussex Works of Edwin Lutyens in England Place {{EastSussex-struct-stub