Sedgwick Park

Sedgwick Park, Nuthurst

A large house with a complex building history. The service wing possibly dates from 1608 and was much altered. A 18th-century house to the east was incorporated into later additions built for the Henderson family in 1886, with a tower addition dating from 1904.

The exterior appearance is almost entirely late 19th century in Arts and Crafts style, built of rubble with ashlar dressings and a Horsham stone slab roof, with stone chimneystacks. The plan is roughly segmental, facing south to make maximum use of sunlight in the principal rooms. The building is two storeys and attics with stone mullioned windows throughout.

The north front features a projecting gabled porch with pediment and Horsham stone slab fishscale tiles. Above this is a first-floor four-light mullioned window with a crest and shield bearing the motto "DEUS NOBISCUM QUIS CONTRA" (the arms of William Henry Abbey, High Sheriff of Sussex in 1935). The porch includes a round-headed doorcase with keystone, a studded door, and a fine bronze doorknocker with a male mask spewing forth two cupids. To the west of this is a two-storey canted bay with mullioned windows.

To the east of the porch is a tall hall window four tiers high and three lights across. Further east is a series of gables and dormer windows with modified Venetian windows. The narrow east front has an external chimney stack and a blocked-in oculus. The south or garden front has eight windows including three large projecting pedimented gables—one with a Venetian window, another with a five-light oriel, and five dormers. The first floor has mullioned windows while the ground floor has mullioned and transomed windows. A central recessed round-headed arched doorcase opens to the garden.

Attached to the west end is a three-storey square tower dated 1904 in matching materials, topped with a pyramidal roof with copper and wooden cupola and an iron weathervane. The upper floor has a five-light mullioned window while the ground floor has three round-headed arches, with a one-storey garden room extending south.

The service wing, attached to the west, probably incorporates an original building of 1608 though its present appearance is late 19th century. It is two storeys, pebble dashed with a hipped slate roof, and features five late 19th-century windows and five panelled fielded doors to the ground floor.

Attached to the east end of the building is a red brick garden wall in English bond brickwork, incorporating a five-part late 19th-century wrought iron gateway with an open pediment fanlight and scrollwork.

The interior of the east part of the house contains a staircase hall with a very fine reused early 18th-century staircase featuring two scrolled balusters to each tread, scrolled tread ends, and a 19th-century fluted column newel. A late 19th-century stone baronial-style fireplace and panelling are present. The south-east ground-floor room has late 19th-century panelling and a carved wooden fireplace in 18th-century style. An adjoining room contains late 19th-century panelling with fluted pilasters, a cornice of swags and cherubs over the fireplace, and a cornice of vine leaves elsewhere. Another adjoining room has a plaster ceiling with Tudor roses. The room behind the tower has 19th-century panelling and a marble fireplace with central frieze, cornice, Adam-style figures, and reeded pilasters.

An ancient site with remains of a castle lies within the grounds. The Hendersons developed a celebrated garden, documented in two Country Life articles by Christopher Hussey published in June 1942.