PENSHURST PLACE

Kent

Penshurst Place, Kent

A manor house stood here at Penshurst as early as the Domesday Book.  A licence to crenellate was issued in 1341, but the building that was constructed ended up more manor than Castle.  Sir John Devereux inherited the Castle and got a second licence in 1392.  He constructed a Castle of strong walls and towers, one of which still exists more or less intact (extreme right in the photo).

No action ever seems to have occurred at Devereux's Castle and subsequent owners throughout the 15th-19th centuries "de-fortified" the building and turned it back into the manor house we see today.

Sir Philip Sidney, the famed Elizabethan poet, was born and lived at Penshurst, and today that is one of its chief claims to fame; aside from being a beautiful house in beautiful gardens in a very beautiful part of Kent.

Penshurst Place is open to the public during the summer months.

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© Text copyright - Raving Loony Productions, Andrew J. Müller and Roy Barton
© Photos and Artwork - Andrew J. Müller and Roy Barton
© Web Design and Layout - Andrew J. Müller
2001

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