Petworth House
- Jo Scott
- Jun 11, 2023
- 2 min read
Petworth House and Turner’s Vision – a perfect day trip
This magnificent country house with its beautiful deer park and impressive art collection encapsulates the grandeur of Georgian stately life in the South Downs, offering a rich blend of cultural and natural beauty. Located in the charming countryside town of Petworth, only a
40-minute drive from the beach house, Petworth House and Park is a National Trust property, with the house and grounds open seven days a week throughout the year.
From 21 June to 16 November 2025, Petworth House will host Turner’s Vision at Petworth, a special exhibition marking 250 years since the birth of J.M.W. Turner, one of Britain’s most celebrated landscape painters. The show features over 20 rarely seen works including oil paintings, sketches and watercolours from Tate and private collections. Turner spent extended periods living and working at Petworth in the early 1800s, making the house and its grounds a key source of his inspiration. This exhibition reunites his art with the setting that shaped it.
The permanent collection also includes works by Van Dyck, Reynolds, Blake, and Gainsborough as well as a further 20 oil paintings by Turner, many of which were commissioned by the 3rd Earl of Egremont, lord of the manor and a renowned patron of the arts. Four of these large-scale works still hang in the Carved Room, the space they were originally created for. Among them, Dewy Morning (1810) stands out for its delicate balance of light, atmosphere, and landscape and is rarely exhibited beyond the walls of Petworth.
After exploring the house, step into the 700-acre deer park and Pleasure Garden, designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown. Often called the father of English landscape gardening, Brown created sweeping, naturalistic views that remain largely unchanged to this day.
While in Petworth, don’t miss a stop at The Hungry Guest, a local favourite with a butcher, deli, and café all showcasing high-quality, locally sourced produce, perfect for a relaxed breakfast or light lunch. If you’re staying for dinner, East Street Bar and Grill offers a more refined dining experience, with seasonal menus, an elegant setting, and a focus on flavour, ideal after a day of exploring art and history.
If you're looking for more art to take in Newlands House Gallery is just down the road from Petworth House, an art gallery with a changing programme of modern and contemporary artists – currently showing Andy Warhol.
Petworth is also home to number of fantastic antique shops, with particularly impressive furniture collections, as well as boutique crafts shops.
