PENSHURST

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 146, 20 May 1930, Page 8

PENSHURST

A STATELY HOME. MEDIEVAL DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. In one of the loveliest parts of Kent stands a stately old house, venerable and weather worn. It has stood there—or parts of it, at least —since before the years when William the Conguerer made his glittering way into England, Penshurst has been abundantly celebrated in verse and prose. Ben Johnson wrote: “Thou are not, l’enshurst, built to envious show, Of touch or marble, nor canst boast of row Of polished pillars or a roof of gold. ... Then hast thy orchard fruit, thy gardens flowers, Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours The early cherry with the later plum, Fig, grape and quince, each in his time doth come; The blushing apricot and woolly peach Hang on thy walls that every child may reach.” Our present-day verse, says the Christian Science Monitor, would 6ay, very likely, that Ben Jonson’s last lino was a straining for rhyme. Still, tho poet knew Penshurst —knew that the old manor house was the abode of happy children, who loved it. Penshurst is admired, studied and written about because it is a fine survival oi medieval domestic architecture in England; but those who know of the long line of worthy owners, and the beautiful, noble women who have lived there, love it because it has been their home. Tho family of De Penchester held Penshurst for two hundred years after tho landing of William, but Stephen de Penchester was the first who made an impression upon its record. Ho had other seats more to liis liking, so Penshurst came down, in the fourteenth century through a younger daughter, to Sir John de Poultney, who was four times Lord Mayor of London. Even though Sir John obtained license in 1341 to creneliate Penshurst was more a manor house than a fortified castle—always a home. The older parts of the house date from Sir John's occupancy. Ho built the splendid hall, with its timbered roof and its musicians' gallery, and tho great central place tor tire, the trestle tables and tho fine Kentish windows. Books on English homes rarely omit design or description of tho Hall of Penshurst, since it is the best example of an early Norman hall. After Sir John do Poultney, the Devereaux were owners of Penshurst, followed by the Duke of Bedford, and tho unfortunate Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Thero the latter entertained Henry VIII, and not long afterward the estate reverted to the crown. , “A fairer spot,” writes Julia Cartwright, “would have been hard to hnu. All that is best and loveliest in English scenery, green lawns and sunny terraces, noble avenues and running waters seein brought together around this stately pile.” Tho interior is in rare old furnishings; portraits of Tudor and Stuart kings and queens look down from the ancient walls, and, moro interesting, these of the Sidneys and their allied families, the Dudleys, Herberts, Percys and Cecils. In 1552 this beautiful old place was granted by Edward VI to Sir William bidney, “The fyrst of his name who was Lorde of this manor,” and we visit Penshurst chiefly because, for hundreds of years, it has been the home of a family of whom “it might be said with truth, that all the men were brave, and all the women’pure”—the Sidneys. Penshurst was loved by Sir Philip Sidney, “the hero and ornament or his family,” and a uniquely loved personage in literature. He had Penshurst in mind when he wrote his Arcadia: “Tho house itself was built of fair and strong stone, not affecting so much any extraordinary kind of fineness, as an honourable representing of a firm stateliness. The backside of the house was neither field, garden nor orchard—or rather it was both field, garden and orchard; for as soon as the descending of the stairs had delivered them down, they came into a place cunningly set with trees with tho most taste-pleasing fruits; but scarcely had they taken that into consideration, but that they were suddenly stepped into a delicate green; of each side of tie green a thicket, and behind the thicket again were beds of flowers.” Sir Philip’s grand-nephew, Algernon Sidney, the great patriot, longed for his old home, Penshurst, during all his years of exile. From Italy he wrote asking that he might be allowed “to live quietly for a few months at Penshurst.” We are glad to know that ho did spend a tew peaceful months there with his father, and later, being a friend of William Penn, and in sympathy with Penn’s ideas of government, aided the greater Quaker m writing the charter lor Pennsylvania. Penshurst was also the home of Lady Dorothy Sidney, Duchess of Sunderland. She was a sister of Algernon Sidney, and loved him in his loneliness. She was tho inspiration of many of Waller’s poems, but for the poet she had a fine contempt. Down tho centuries renowned visitors came to Penshurst: The Black Prince and the fair Maid of Kent; Henry VIII, and many others; there Elizabeth left many mementos and the suite she occupied still bears her name. . . Penshurst contains many reminders of the Sidneys, and notable portraits of Sir Phi Tip Sidney ; of Algernon as a baby dressed in white; and that famous painting where his arm rests upon a large volume, upon which is written the single word, fraught with such meaning for him —Libertas a portrait which reveals “all the Roman sternness, the lofty spirit and resolution of his character.” There are relics of the lovely Lady Dorothy, and a portrait of her as a charming shepherdess ; also, the stately lady of the Vandyke portrait.