Port Lympne Mansion

Port Lympne
Port Lympne
Former names	Belcaire
General information
Type	Country House
Architectural style	Dutch colonial Revival
Town or city	Lympne
Country	United Kingdom
Construction started	1913
Client	Philip Sassoon
Landlord	The Aspinall Foundation
Technical details
Material	Red Brick
Design and construction
Architect	Herbert Baker, Philip Tilden and others
Designations	Grade II* listed

Port Lympne, at Lympne, Kent is an early 20th-century country house built for Sir Philip Sassoon by Herbert Baker and Philip Tilden. Completed after the First World War. Following Sassoon's death in 1939 it was bequeathed with its contents, including cars and planes, to Hannah Gubbay, his cousin. It was abandoned after the Second World War. In 1973, it was purchased by John Aspinall as part of an expansion of his Howletts Zoo. The house is a Grade II* listed building as of 29 December 1966.

Philip Sassoon, 3rd Baronet, GBE, CMG, purchased the estate in 1913 with the proceeds of the sale of his parents' home (Aline Caroline de Rothschild and Edward Albert Sassoon), Shorncliffe Lodge, in Sandgate, Kent." Scion of a family of wealthy Iraqi merchants.

As the MP for Hythe Philip Sassoon commissioned Sir Herbert Baker to design the house in the Cape Dutch architecture style. It was built for him around 1913/4 "on a superb site looking across Romney Marsh to the sea." Originally named Belcaire, it was renamed Port Lympne after the First World War, echoing Portus Lemanis, a Roman port which was situated nearby. When work recommenced after the end of the War, Sassoon employed Philip Tilden, who also worked for Sassoon's political friends and colleagues, David Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill. "Tilden's job was to enlarge Port Lympne and to make it, in his words, "no more of the modest week-end home, but rather the epitome of all things conductive to luxurious relaxation after the strenuousness of war. It was to be a challenge to the world, telling people that a new culture had risen up from the sick-bed of the old, with new aspirations, eyes upon a new aspect, mind turned to a new burst of imagination," Tilden's additions and alterations during the early 1920s included doorcases, the east forecourt, the terraces and the amazing external staircase leading to the pool. Internally the ground floor of the passageway, from east to west is decorated with patterned black and white marble in varying concentric curves with a barrel-vaulted ceiling. The staircase is flanked by blue marble columns and pink on the first floor. The iron balustrade to the stairs was copied from the principal stair at Caroline Park, Scotland. Sir Philip Sassoon thought it a moderate house, yet it had 4 reception rooms, 2 libraries, 13 principle bedrooms, eight bathrooms as well as 17 staff bedrooms with a further 5 bathrooms. Although complete before The First World War the grand finishing touches, particularly the grounds were executed after 1918 under the guidance of Philip Tilden.

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