Newbuildings Place

Newbuildings Place is a Grade I listed building, constructed in the late 17th century, likely in 1683, by Philip Caryll, whose family owned the estate from 1609 to 1752. The structure has two storeys, an attic, and a basement, featuring five windows and two gabled dormers. It is built of stone quarried from the estate, with red brick dressings and rusticated quoins. The house consists of two parallel ranges, each with shaped Dutch gable ends and chimney breasts at both ends, topped with a Horsham slab roof.

At the center, there is a two-storeyed projection with a shaped gable that contains a porch with a round-headed doorway and a room above. The windows are casement style with wooden mullions and transoms, featuring small square panes. The ground floor has small modern bays with hoods made of Horsham slabs, and there is a modern addition at the north end with three windows and an L-wing of two storeys to the north-west. The original kitchen and cellars are stone-vaulted.

The Caryll family were Roman Catholics, and the house includes several priest-holes. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the property belonged to Wilfred Scawen Blunt, an author, poet, traveler, and breeder of Arab horses, who lived and died here and is buried in the grounds behind the house. The building still contains the William Morris tapestry and furniture that Blunt commissioned for it. Newbuildings Place is an unusual Sussex house with significant historical associations.