Petworth House

Petworth House
Petworth House, west facade
General information
Type	Country house
Architectural style	Baroque
Location	Petworth, West Sussex
Country	England
Completed	1688
Owner	Max Wyndham, 7th Baron Leconfield, 2nd Baron Egremont (born 1948)

Petworth House in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England, is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house, rebuilt in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Salvin. It contains intricate wood-carvings by Grinling Gibbons (d.1721). It is the manor house of the manor of Petworth. For centuries it was the southern home for the Percy family, Earls of Northumberland. Petworth is famous for its extensive art collection made by George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), containing many works by his friend Turner. It also has an expansive deer park, landscaped by Capability Brown, which contains the largest herd of fallow deer in England.

The manor of Petworth first came into the possession of the Percy family as a royal gift from Adeliza of Louvain, the widow of King Henry I (1100-1135), to her brother Joscelin of Louvain. He later married the Percy heiress and adopted the surname Percy. His descendents became the Earls of Northumberland, the most powerful family in northern England.

The Percy family, whose primary seat was at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, bordering Scotland, intended Petworth to be for their occasional residence only. However, in the late 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I grew suspicious of the Percy family's allegiance to Mary, Queen of Scots, and confined them to Petworth.