![Burton Park, Duncton-geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/Burton_Park%2C_Duncton-geograph.org-2040459.jpg)
Burton Park is a 19th-century country house in the civil parish of
Duncton in
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...
, and is situated 1/2 a mile to the east of the village of Duncton, within its own estate. It is a
Grade I listed building, now converted into multiple occupation.
Ecclesiastical parish
![The Church of St Richard - Burton Park - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/The_Church_of_St_Richard_-_Burton_Park_-_geograph.org.uk_-_581081.jpg)
It is now situated within the Church of England ecclesiastical parish of Barlavington St Mary, the church of which is situated about 1 mile to the south. Within the grounds and standing 100 metres north-west of the mansion house stands Burton Church, since 2003 dedicated to St Richard, a tiny Norman church and
grade I listed building now in the ecclesiastical parish of Burton with Coates, in which survive many ancient monuments to the Goring family of Burton Park.
Description
The mansion was built in three storeys faced with Roman cement and has a five-bay west-facing entrance frontage and a 10-window eastern frontage. The interior contains a Grecian hall and an impressive staircase possibly rescued from Michelgrove near Arundel, which was demolished in 1828. The staircase had been built in 1800 and made of cast and wrought bronze with a figure of a greyhound on alternate steps and is largely responsible for the house's Grade I listing.
The house is surrounded by 6 hectares of pleasure gardens, parkland and formal gardens laid out in 1738 and subsequently altered in the 1920s and 1930s. The parkland dates from the 13th century and was landscaped in the 18th and 19th century.
History
The Burton Park estate was inherited in the 15th century by the Goring family, who probably built the first house on the site. When Sir William Goring died in 1724 the property passed by marriage to the Biddulphs. The present house was built about 1828 by architect Henry Bassett for John Biddulph after a fire in 1826 had destroyed the previous house, which had been designed in 1739 by Italian architect
Giacomo Leoni
Giacomo Leoni (1686 – 8 June 1746), also known as James Leoni, was an Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florentine Renaissance architect Leon Battista Alberti, who had also been an inspiration for Andrea Pallad ...
. The property passed down within the Biddulph family until in 1894 it was bought by
Sir Douglas Hall, 1st Baronet
Sir Douglas Bernard Hall, 1st Baronet (24 December 1866 – 30 June 1923) was a British Conservative Party politician.
The son of Bernard Hall, Mayor of Liverpool, he was a justice of the peace and lived at Burton Park, Petworth, Sussex. He ...
, who sold it in 1919 to Major
John Sewell Courtauld
Major John Sewell Courtauld, (30 August 1880 – 20 April 1942) was an English Conservative Party politician.
Family
John Sewell Courtauld (known as "Jack") was a member of the Courtauld family. The family came to England as Huguenot refuge ...
and Mrs Courtauld. Major Courtauld was Member of Parliament for
Chichester Division from 1924 until his death in 1942. They renovated the interior and added new formal features to the gardens. The house and park were requisitioned by the army during the Second World War after which the house, gardens and southern half of the park were sold to St Michael's School.
St Michael's, a girls’ boarding school, remained in occupation until the 1980s after which, in 1994, the site became a police dog-training centre. Since then the house has been divided into apartments.
References
{{coord, 50.9487, -0.6232, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Grade I listed buildings in West Sussex
Country houses in West Sussex
Grade I listed houses