Enjoy exclusive tours of two magnificent Grade I houses plus a gardener-led tour of Parham’s country garden, which will be celebrating its flower festival with floral arrangements throughout the house.

Discover Parham Park, dating from the Elizabethan era when the foundation stone was laid by the two-year-old grandson of Robert Palmer of Henfield. He sold the house when he reached adulthood to Thomas Bishopp whose descendants lived there for eleven generations until 1922 when it was sold to the Pearson family. The Pearsons spent 40 years filling Parham with sensitively chosen furniture, paintings, books, textiles and clocks, some of which had historical or family associations with the house. 

Parham House garden

Later, visit Castle Goring, a unique house designed by John Biagio-Rebecca and regarded as one of the most important architecturally in the country. It was the first house ever built with a dual façade, Greco-Roman on the south side and castellated Gothic on the north. The Palladian aspect is yellow brick and is thought to have been inspired by the renowned Villa Lante near Rome. The Gothic aspect is constructed of flint and sandstone, and was designed to replicate nearby Arundel Castle. It has an intriguing history and is understood to be the only large house in Sussex built by the Shelley family. Sir Bysshe Shelley, grandfather of the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, commissioned the property. Construction began in the 1790s with the intention that it would be the ancestral home of the Shelley family to be lived in by Percy Shelley. Following his tragic death from drowning aged 29, this never materialised. In 1825, the building was let to Captain Sir George Brooke-Pechell, Lord of the Manor of Angmering, who was also MP for Brighton from 1835-1860. An Equerry of Queen Victoria, he was responsible for creating the fabled dome, which is the oldest and largest in a private residence in the country. He also procured in Italy, at vast expense, the horseshoe staircase which was added to the back of the building.

Tickets £80 including a two-course lunch with tea/coffee at the Black Horse Inn, Findon. Lunch options to be made available to attendees in September 2024