We started the day with a pre-breakfast walk around Wrotham, having woken before 5.  Then, after our first full English breakfast of the trip, we headed off to Ightham Mote, a 14th century fortified manor house.  It seemed to be deep in a maze of one-lane alleys, but we found it in the end.  

We were early, so we went for a walk along one of the walking tracks nearby, then eventually made our way to the manor. Fantastic place, encompassing six centuries of still-intact living areas, from the 14th century great hall to the 20th century apartments of its last private owner, Charles Henry Robinson, an American millionaire from Maine, who donated the place to the National Trust in 1985.  It also includes the only Grade 1 Heritage Listed doghouse in the UK!  Nicklaus Pevsner called it ‘the most complete small medieval manor house in the country’.  It had a lot of interesting historical furnishings and ornamentation, and a fascinating little museum up in the loft, which had some things found in the moat from centuries before, including a shoe and some toys.  We had some lunch in the cafeteria after Jen bought a necklace from the shop, but we passed on the ‘pea and lettuce soup’, not being able to imagine a less hearty basis for a good soup!  

Then it was off to Petworth, a stately home and park originally belonging to the mega-rich Percy family (of Hotspur fame) and later acquired by the Seymours, who were elevated to the top ranks of the nobility by the marriage of Jane Seymour to Henry VIII, and who built the current mansion in the 1670s.  Its main attraction is its wonderful art collection, which includes many fantastic Tudor portraits, like the one pictured of Anne Boleyn, plus a whole lot of excellent paintings by Turner, who was patronised by the family and did a lot of works on site.  The Globe pictured is the oldest globe in the UK.  It also has a huge sculpture hall, with some amazing stuff in it.  We had a good look around and then a nice walk down to the lake in the grounds, and back via a couple of interesting temple-like buildings to the car.

We arrived at Burpham, after a drive through very narrow hedge-tunnely country lanes, thinking we were booked for the evening for dinner, only to find we’d got it wrong because their restaurant isn’t open on Monday nights.  I think we originally planned to stay there on the Tuesday.  We went hunting in the village for a restaurant, but there wasn’t so much as a shop.  Nice little walk around though.  Our room was really lovely, with a nice view over the village and countryside.  Lots of thatched roofs. We ended up driving into Arundel for a very nice dinner at one of the local pubs, The Swan Hotel.  I had steak and chippies again and I think Jen had bangers and mash.  They had a quiz in the pub which was interesting.  We flopped early again, but managed to push it out a bit more. A bit of reading and off we dropped.

Ightham Wiki  Petworth Wiki