Philip Sidney reveals life at Penshurt Place, home of his family for nearly 500 years
Deep in the Weald of Kent, five miles from Tonbridge, stands a house that has seen everything. Just looking at it from the outside takes you back in time – you half expect a man wearing a doublet to pop out and burst into song. Welcome to Penshurst Place, home of the Sidney family for the last 471 years.
Built of local stone, and surrounded by a 2,500-acre estate and some of the oldest gardens in England, Penshurst is a true survivor. Covid-19 was not its first plague, nor the 1987 storm that destroyed 10,000 of its trees its first devastation. And yet it goes on, quietly present in its community, a piece of theatre with a 14th-century hall where the chestnut beamed ceiling reaches 60 feet high.
Penshurst Place was built in 1341 as a country retreat for Lord Mayor of London Sir John de Pulteney. Before long it fell into the hands of the Crown Estate and during Henry VIII’s reign, it was used as a hunting lodge. It was convenient for the king, since Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, is only six miles away.
In 1552, Edward VI gave the estate to his courtier Sir William Sidney; it was he, says Dr Hon. Philip Sidney, the 38-year-old son and heir of Philip Sidney, 2nd Viscount De L’Isle, who now owns Penshurst, who brought the family to prominence. “He managed to remain friendly with Henry VIII from the jousting field to the end, which is quite an achievement.”