Stansted Park

Stansted Park was first described as a hunting lodge within the vast Arundel landholdings, with a small manorial house described in 1327 as belonging to the Fitzalan Earls of Arundel. Built on the site of the present day Chapel of St Paul, this small house was rebuilt and enlarged in 1480 to create a substantial castellated building.

Following the marriage of Jane, daughter of the last Fitzalan Earl of Arundel, and John, Lord Lumley in 1579, the estate passed into the ownership of the Lumley family. During the 200 years that the Lumley family owned the estate, its appearance would change significantly, with Richard Viscount Lumley abandoning the old house to build the first house on the present site in 1688. Built in the Dutch style to a design by William Talman, the House’s interiors were lavishly decorated and hung with six magnificent tapestries depicting the ‘Art of War.’ Three of these can still be seen on display today.

In 1766, the Stansted estate passed into the ownership of the 2nd Earl of Halifax, who remodeled the grounds and embellished them with two architectural features: a domed Roman temple and a fortified medieval tower. The domed temple collapsed in the middle of the 20th century but the ruins of the tower can still be seen.

The next owner- Richard Barwell- would commission Capability Brown to remodel the grounds before the estate was sold again in 1805 to Reverend Lewis Way. Lewis Way purchased the estate with the aim of establishing a theological college and built the Chapel of St Paul out of the ruins of the old manorial house, with the interiors featuring a unique stained glass window combining Christian and Jewish iconography. Poet John Keats attended the Chapel’s consecration service in January 1819 and used the Chapel’s unique imagery in his poems The Eve of St Agnes and The Eve of St John.

The estate would be sold again to Charles Dixon, a successful wine merchant, who earned popularity in the local area for building Stansted College in Rowlands Castle and alms houses for those in his industry who had been less fortunate. Following Dixon’s death in 1871, Stansted Park was passed down to his wife’s grandson from her first marriage.

George Wilder owned Stansted Park when a fire broke out in the House on 10 August 1900, the last day of the Goodwood Races. Over 100 staff and volunteers worked to save as much of the contents from the House as possible, including the six ‘Art of War’ tapestries, but the House was destroyed, with only the Crypt and undercrofts surviving today.

A new House, using the same footprint as the original, was designed by Arthur Conran Blomfield in a classical revival style, paying homage to the original red brick, Dutch style designed by William Talman in the 1680s. Built between 1900-1903, the House featured many of the modern technologies including hot and cold running water in the bathrooms via mixer taps and floors made from steel-enforced concrete to provide fire barriers. A Waygood lift was also installed in the House, providing access from the basement to the attic, and came from the same batch as the lifts made for the Titanic. This Edwardian lift continues to be used today.

In 1924, Stansted Park was purchased by Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough and became the family seat of the Earls of Bessborough. In 1939, the Bessborough’s welcomed evacuees from the Services Children’s Home in Southsea to Stansted Park and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, stayed for one night in December 1939, planting a tree in the grounds. During World War Two, over 80 bombs fell on the estate and a German aircraft would crash on the cricket ground, killing all the crew and mortally wounding a friend of the family. This crash would result in the windows of the Chapel and the west windows of the House being blown out. Following the war, the Chapel would be restored by Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel.

Stansted Park remained in the private ownership of the Earl’s of Bessborough until 1984 when Frederick Ponsonby, 10th Earl of Bessborough established the Stansted Park Foundation to ensure that the estate was preserved in perpetuity for the nation.

Stansted Park Today:
Today the House is furnished as though the 10th Earl of Bessborough was still at home and visitors can see many of the family’s personal possessions that were brought to Stansted Park in 1924. Family portraits decorate the walls, including paintings of Henrietta Ponsonby, Viscountess Bessborough, and her sister Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, by artist Angelika Kauffmann and family portraits by Dutch painter Jean-Etienne Liotard.

Visitors can also explore the Ponsonby Room and learn about the wider Ponsonby family and their links to significant historical events and figures, including the experience of Frederick and William Ponsonby at the Battle of Waterloo.