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Petworth House
East Front and Courtyard
This view is of the east front and the courtyard. The visitors entrance is by way of the white door just
visible in the shrubbery at the ground level. Also visible is the electric car available for persons unable to take
the walk from the car parks to the house entrance.
The 6th Duke of Somerset refronted only the south end of the rear, east
front during his re-modelling of Petworth at the end of the 17th century.
As a result, the mish-mash of different styles visible here clearly reveals
the long and complicated genesis of Petworth.
To the north is the pointed arch of the Chapel's east window. The Chapel,
probably built c.1309, was largely detached from the main block until the
mid-eighteenth century, its south facing side windows being visible from from
the outside. Above the Chapel window is another large opening lighting the
Old Library, constructed by the 6th Duke in c.1702-3 and used by Turner as
a studio.
To the south of the Chapel is a doorway leading into the Luggage Corridor,
presumably the access point for guests' belongings. To the left is the doorway
by which National Trust visitors enter the house via the Oak Staircase Hall.
Left again are the sash-windows, lengthened in 1815, which light the Somerset
Room and Square Dining Room.
Then, separated by one of several buttresses, come the two tall round-headed
sash-windows of the Grand Staircase, installed after 1718 when the Staircase
was rebuilt after the fire of 1714. From there to the south corner, the façade
is of Portland stone, originally constructed by the 6th Duke, and repaired
both at the beginning of the 19th century and during Salvin's extensive remodelling
of this end of the house between 1869 and 1872.
Salvin replaced the 3rd Earl's conservatory (1821) with the stone screen
and gateway that bisect the courtyard and separate the public and private
sides of the house. At the opposite (north) end of the courtyard he also demolished
another conservatory, an adjacent real tennis court and a passage connecting
the North Gallery with the Servants' Block.
The courtyard was, therefore, previously cut off from the Pleasure Ground.
It was known as the Fountain Court after the Coade stone circular fountain
in the form of a triton blowing a conch shell which was removed to the garden
below the south front around 1870, probably as part of Salvin's alterations.
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