SACKVILLE HOUSE
Sackville House
Property details
Built about 1520, this is a substantial timber-framed house with rooms of wood and lime plaster and the patina of centuries past. When you enter the yard you escape the bustle of modern day East Grinstead and find yourself in a large, peaceful garden. It was rescued in 1919 and was bequeathed to us in 1995, so that everyone could enjoy it.
A timber-framed house that still has its portland garden
Sackville House stands on the south side of East Grinstead’s broad High Street. Timber-framed, like most of the older houses here, and roofed in thick Horsham stone, it was built with a fine jettied frontage in about 1520 as a substantial house running back from the street with a yard at the side. It was remodelled 50 years ago, adding fireplaces and wall paintings.
What is really exceptional about Sackville House lies behind. East Grinstead was laid out in the thirteenth century, a street of houses each with a long plot of land behind, called a portland. Most of these have since been divided and built on, making ours a rare survival. Only in one small area, opposite the church, do they survive in anything like their original form. The garden here, some 630 feet long, slopes to the south, passing through several stages from formal terrace to wild nuttery. The contrast, and combination, are delightful.
It was rescued in 1919 and we took on this atmospheric Landmark in 1995 so that others can enjoy it.
The house was built around 1525 as a four bay continuous jetty house with the original wagon way giving access to the rear. Behind the house, and detached from it for reasons of fire safety, was probably a two bay kitchen, of which part of the last bay overlooking the garden still survives. As a continuous jetty house, the ground floor would never have been open to the roof, and it probably consisted of a two bay hall with the buttery and pantry service rooms off one end. There is no evidence of how the hall was heated, as the brick chimney stack is a later addition of 1574, the date proudly carved into fireplace lintel in the middle bedroom.
This is now a private holiday accommodation and is no longer open to the public.