From royal favourite to stranger's heir - Stansted Park, West Sussex, part 1

A property of the Stansted Park Foundation In the first of two articles, John Goodall looks at the stages by which a medieval hunting lodge developed from the 17th century to become a great country house

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FROM Chichester, the road, lying still west, passes in view of the Earl of Scarbrough’s fine seat at Stansted, a house, seeming to be a retreat, being surrounded with thick woods, thro’ which there are the most pleasant, agreeable, vistas cut, that are to be seen anywhere in England… [those that] sit in the dining room of the house… see the town and harbour of Portsmouth, the ships at Spithead, and also at Saint Helens; which, when the royal navy happens to be there, as often happen’d during the late war, is a most glorious sight.’ Much has changed to the setting of Stansted Park since Daniel Defoe visited in 1722, but the richly wooded landscape and spectacular views—which are central to the deep and fascinating history of the site—remain (Fig 1).

The story of the house can be traced back in the documentary record to the 12th century and the death of William d’Albini, Earl of Arundel, in 1176. In that year, the Earl’s landed possessessions, including Stansted, came into the hands of Henry II. There is no previous reference to a residence, but one must have existed because, in 1177, the King spent a week here. He also evidently enjoyed the hunting because, in 1178–81, the Pipe Rolls record the expenses of his falconers at Stansted and, then, between 1181 and 1184, the very substantial expenditure of more than £125 on the King’s ‘new chamber’, kitchen and ‘house’. His sons, Richard I and John, likewise made recorded visits, but, in the 13th century, Stansted reverted to the possession of the Fitzalan Earls of Arundel.