The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Money
‘I’m 38 and live on a 500-year-old estate’
Philip Sidney tells Eleanor Doughty what it is like to inherit a sprawling country pile
Deep in the Weald of Kent, five miles from Tonbridge, stands a house that has seen everything. Just looking at it from the outside takes you back in time – you half expect a man wearing a doublet to pop out and burst into song. Welcome to Penshurst Place, home of the Sidney family for the last 471 years.
Built of local stone, and surrounded by a 2,500-acre estate and some of the oldest gardens in England, Penshurst is a true survivor. Covid-19 was not its first plague, nor the 1987 storm that destroyed 10,000 of its trees its first devastation. And yet it goes on, quietly present in its community, a piece of theatre with a 14th- century hall where the chestnut beamed ceiling reaches 60ft.
Penshurst Place was built in 1341 as a country retreat for lord mayor of London Sir John de Pulteney. Before long it fell into the hands of the Crown Estate and during Henry VIII’s reign was used as a hunting lodge. It was convenient for the king, since Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, is only six miles away.
In 1552, Edward VI gave the estate to his courtier Sir William Sidney; it was he, says Philip Sidney, the 38-yearold son and heir of Philip Sidney, 2nd Viscount De L’Isle, who now owns Penshurst, who brought the family to prominence. “He managed to remain friendly with Henry VIII from the jousting field to the end, which is quite an achievement.” Sir William Sidney died in 1554 and his son Sir Henry Sidney, lord deputy of Ireland, took over Penshurst, extending the house and creating a series of state rooms.
His son, Sir Philip Sidney, was born the same year. Courtier, scholar, and soldier, he is perhaps best known today as the author of the pastoral romance Arcadia, and was described by CS Lewis as “that rare thing, the aristocrat in whom the aristocratic ideal is really embodied”.
“Of course, Sir Philip Sidney was only a knight – we don’t have a shrine to him, but we do have a piece of his shaving mirror,” laughs his namesake. At school, a teacher said to him that he might grow up to be like his forebear. As his mother Isobel De L’Isle remembers: “Philip said, ‘ I certainly hope not – he was very spotty and had a terrible temper’.”
Four centuries and many heirs called Philip later, Penshurst opened to the public in August 1946, a year after Philip’s grandfather William “Bill” Sidney, 6th Baron De L’Isle and Dudley VC (later 1st Viscount De L’Isle) inherited it from his uncle Colonel Algernon Sidney, 4th Baron De L’Isle and Dudley.
Bill De L’Isle’s life is ripe for the writing. MP, peer, sometime cabinet minister, governor-general of Australia, and Knight of the Garter, he was awarded a Victoria Cross for his actions at the Battle of Anzio in 1944.
Arriving at a rather shabby Penshurst in September 1945 with his wife and their three children, they had to start from scratch. The garden was overgrown and weed-ridden, rooms were piled high with furniture, and the kitchen was miles from the dining room. They employed Charles Brown, surveyor of the fabric of York Minster, to assist in restoring the house, which opened the following summer. When
‘Even if everything else is falling down at the moment, then Penshurst Place isn’t’
Bill De L’Isle died in 1991 aged 81, his son and daughter-in-law, and their children Sophia and Philip, pictured left, moved into Penshurst.
It was a shock to the system; after a few days, Sophia asked her mother whether it was time to go back to their old house. Philip remembers wandering around slightly wide- eyed. “I can’t remember how it was decided whose room would be whose, but I ended up with one with Paddington Bear curtains.” He reflects it must have been a “terribly difficult time” for his parents.
Now, Penshurst is a thriving visitor attraction, with a popular cafe, plant centre, adventure playground, and toy museum. It can be booked for weddings and private events, and there are cycling and walking routes through the estate. The family take to heart a line from Ben Jonson’s 1611 poem To Penshurst – “thy lord dwells”. The house, says Philip, “has always been a family home that is visited, rather than a visitor attraction that we live above”.
In time, it will be Philip’s responsibility – but his is not the lot of a struggling heir to a big, crumbling house.
“If everything else is falling down at the moment, then Penshurst Place isn’t,” he says. The De L’Isles have a “next generation file” containing jobs for Philip to do; for some of his peers, this file includes “rewire” and “new roof ”. Not so at Penshurst, thanks to
Bill De L’Isle’s industry. “Structurally, touch wood,” says Philip, “we seem to be all right, recognising that earth, wind and fire could change that at any time.”
Day to day, his father chairs Penshurst’s board of management, the general manager handles the house and gardens, and Philip’s role is that of “chief cheerleader”. When he’s not at Penshurst he works in London in corporate governance, and chairs Historic Houses’ Next Generation committee, which supports those in line to inherit big houses. He feels optimistic about the future of the country house, and like his peers is aware that inheritance is no picnic.
“One feels Nemesis creeping up behind one with a custard pie,” laughs Philip, “but yes, I’m confident. Plunge one’s bucket into the sea of British history and you usually have something Sidney-related when you drag it back up. It’s proud-making – it makes one want to make one’s own mark.”