A grand West Sussex mansion full of Turner paintings, wrapped in a deer park Capability Brown spent years shaping
Open to visitorsa National Trust place — check opening times and admission before you go
The paintings are the reason most people come. J.M.W. Turner was a regular guest of the 3rd Earl of Egremont in the 1820s and 30s, given a studio of his own and the run of the place, and the house still holds a roomful of his work alongside old masters. That is the part you pay for, on set hours: the state rooms, the carved room, the picture gallery.
The park is the other half, and wandering it costs nothing. Capability Brown reshaped close to 300 hectares here into a rolling landscape of grass, clumped trees and a serpentine lake, and it is still grazed by a big herd of fallow deer. Turner painted this ground too, so you get to stand where he set up his easel. Early morning is the time to go if you want the deer to yourself and the light low across the water. Come in autumn and the bucks are in rut, groaning and clashing antlers, and you tend to hear them well before you spot them.
You can walk in on foot from Petworth itself, the little town huddled up against the wall, which saves the car park and gives you a proper approach through the gates. If you fancy stretching the day out, the Serpent Trail wriggles off through the greensand heaths and woods nearby, and the old wood-pasture of The Mens sits a few miles east for anyone who likes their trees ancient and their paths quiet.
