The earliest recorded owner of the manor was Lambert de Scoteni in 1137. Roger Ashburnham built the castle in the valley of the River Bewl c.1378-80. Like Bodiam Castle it had round towers at each corner only one of which, the Ashburnham Tower, still remains.
The Catholic Darrell family owned the estate for some 350 years. They rebuilt the south wing c.1580. In the early 17th century they hid the Jesuit Father Blount in the Priest's hole which can still be seen in the Old Castle. Around 1640 a three-storey east range was constructed.
Edward Hussey bought the estate in 1778 and between 1783 and 1792 pieced the rest of the old Darrell estate back together. It was Edward Hussey's grandson, another Edward, who built the 'new' Scotney Castle on a terrace 25 metres above the Old Castle commissioning Anthony Salvin to design a modern Victorian country house in an Elizabethan style. The mellow sandstone was quarried from the slope below, and the resulting area turned in to a dramatic Quarry Garden. In the Quarry Garden a fossilised impression of a dinosaur's footprint can be seen in the ripples of the 100,000,000 year old Great Wealden Sea.
Edward Hussey planted trees in the parkland to enhance the views and managed the woodland and farm to provide income and produce for the estate.
The spectacular garden was created in the Picturesque style with the help of William Sawrey Gilpin whose uncle the Rev William Gilpin had considered designs by 'Capability' Brown to be too smooth and tidy. The Picturesque should resemble the best landscape painting: with drama, variety and rough edges. The Old Castle was selectively ruined to create a dramatic focal point for the garden.
When Edward Hussey III's grandson Christopher inherited Scotney in 1952 he, together with his wife Elizabeth, set about planting far more year round colour. On his death in 1970 the estate was left to the National Trust in apt fulfilment of his family motto: Vix ea nostra voco ('I scarcely call these things our own').
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