A vast house originally built by the Archbishop of Canterbury between 1456 and 1486, acquisitioned by Henry V111 and later rebuilt by Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, who transformed the late medieval archbishop's palace into a Renaissance mansion. It was given to the National Trust in 1946 although the Sackville-West family retained possession of the park and many of the contents of the house and were granted a 200-year lease on various private apartments within the house.
The formal gardens were not open for our visit, but the deer were obligingly willing to have their pictures taken.