'Up Park' - the site explains the old spelling - is parkland set high on the West Sussex Downs looking south over a broad valley to the Solent and the Isle of Wight.
The history of Uppark and its owners is not a complicated one but the romance of Uppark and its story is matched by few other houses.
It was built c1690 in the fashionable domestic style derived from the Netherlands - a simple but satisfying red brick house with prominent stone dressings, a deep eaves cornice and high pitched roof - very much a home and not a house of parade.
Owners and collection
The builder was Forde, Lorde Grey of Warke, later 1st Earl of Tankerville. The house was sold by his descendants in 1747 to Matthew Fetherstonhaugh who had inherited a vast fortune from an Essex kinsman. Sir Matthew and his wife made few structural alterations to the main house but they did re-decorate extensively and introduce the nucleus of the collection of furniture and pictures, many of them purchased on their Grand Tours of the Continent between 1749 and 1751.
The collection was augmented by their only son Sir Harry, who lived a prodigal life at Uppark entertaining lavishly and included the Prince Regent among his frequent guests. In 1810, however, he withdrew from society and devoted his attentions to discussing improvements to the house and grounds with Humphry Repton. At the age of over 70 he took the extraordinary step of marrying his dairy maid and he left the entire estate to her on his death in 1846. She, in turn, left it to her unmarried sister and together they made provision for the estate to pass, after the life tenancy of a neighbour, to the second surviving son of another friend and neighbour, the fourth Earl of Clanwilliam, on the condition that he should assume the name of Fetherstonhaugh.
©NTPL / Nadia Mackenzie
The loyalty of the two ladies to Sir Harry's memory ensured that the passage of time hardly touched the house throughout the long Victorian age and the preservation of its hauntingly beautiful and mellow interior was continued under the guidance of the late Lady Meade-Fetherstonhaugh, whose husband inherited as Lord Clanwilliam's son in 1931 and gave the house to the National Trust in 1954.
Damaged by fire
On 30 August 1989, Uppark was severely damaged by fire. Its repair has been the most complicated the National Trust has ever undertaken. Uppark re-opened its doors in the Trust's centenary year (1995), a timely celebration of British conservation skills.
If there is much that has been learned and to be grateful for since the fire, there is continuing sorrow for what has been lost. The Meade-Fetherstonhaugh family's possessions were totally destroyed. The loss of the private rooms and their contents on the upper floors, removed from Uppark an intrinsic element of its fame as a house unaltered since the 19th-century. Downstairs, the patina of age has largely gone from several rooms but it has been possible to preserve much of the old paint and gilding in the Saloon and Dining Room, untouched since c1815.
The aim has been to restore Uppark, in so far as is practicable, to its state before the fire. Old and new have been carefully interwoven and recorded but it is hoped that their junction is invisible and that a seamless repair has been achieved.
©NTPL / Ian West
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