Hammerwood Park is a country house in Hammerwood, 2.9 miles (4.6 km) east of East Grinstead and 8.8 miles (14.2 km) west of Tunbridge Wells, in East Sussex, England. One of the first Greek Revival houses in England, it is a Grade I listed building.
Hammerwood was built in 1792–95 as the first independent work of the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who left for the United States in November 1795, and is now regarded as the "father of American architecture." As the first Surveyor of the Public Buildings under Presidents Jefferson and Madison, Latrobe designed the United States Capitol – where he reused Hammerwood's distinctive, Paestum-derived Doric order for the Supreme Court Chamber – and, later, the White House's north and south porticoes.
Hammerwood is the earliest example of the Grecian style which Latrobe would employ in America as an expression of the new republic's democratic ideals, and which exerted a foundational influence on the American architectural aesthetic. Architectural historians have ranked it "among the most remarkable houses for [its] date in the British Isles," judging that Latrobe's work there elevates him to "the rank of the very first of British architects."
After the Second World War, during which the house was requisitioned for military use, it fell into serious dereliction. In 1973, it was bought by the rock band Led Zeppelin, who intended to convert it into a recording studio; instead it stood derelict and vandalised for much of the following decade. Since 1982, Hammerwood has been restored by, and has been the home of, the Pinnegar family. Open to the public since April 1983, it also hosts an annual concert series on a collection of historic keyboard instruments. Hammerwood served as the location for Beyoncé’s September 2018 Vogue cover shoot.
Its Picturesque parkland was laid out in the 1790s under the probable influence of Humphry Repton, and centred on a lake with views opening across the valley beyond, is separately Grade II listed on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
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History
The site before 1792
Hammerwood sits in the High Weald, on the fringes of the Ashdown Forest, in a valley which has a long history of iron-working.
At its foot, at Far Blacklands, sat the largest Roman bloomery site yet identified on the High Weald; evidence points to iron production on an industrial scale in the first and second centuries AD. Fragments of roof tile, hypocaust tile, brick and furnace lining suggest further Roman buildings, and coins of Vespasian and Trajan have been found along with Samian and coarse pottery.
The site lies a mile (1.6 km) west of the London–Lewes Roman road, which may have carried its iron to market. A Roman tile kiln was also excavated in 1982 on Great Cansiron Farm, located between the iron-working site to the south-west and what may have been Roman iron-ore quarries to the north-east. The bloomery has been a scheduled monument since 1975.
After the Norman Conquest, the land lay within the rape of Pevensey, which William I granted to his half-brother Robert, Count of Mortain. In Domesday Book the count is recorded as tenant-in-chief at both Hartfield and Brambletye in East Grinstead hundred. After the forfeiture of Robert's son, Henry I regranted the rape to the l'Aigle family, and it became known as the Honour of the Eagle. Following the death of Peter II of Savoy in 1268, it passed to Eleanor of Provence and thereafter descended as Crown property, frequently assigned to queens consort.
By the 1290s, the land formed part of an estate known as The Bower, straddling the parishes of East Grinstead and Hartfield, which is thought to have been part of a medieval deer park. A family named Atte Boure appears among local taxpayers under Edward I in the 1290s, probably holding the land as tenants of neighbouring lords.
In the mid-16th century the estate was held by Hugh Botting (or Bottinge), a yeoman, who died in 1560, leaving his widow Joan the use of the principal chamber in his "house called The Bower". In his will of 1558 he left his son Henry "two tonnes of yron". The forge, which stood in the valley south of the house (coordinates: 51°07′36″N 0°03′37″E), with a bay (dam) 200 metres (220 yd) long, was at work in 1653 but ruined by 1664, although a conveyance of 1702 still refers to the highway from Forest Row to Bower Forge, suggesting the building was then still standing. John Botting "of the Bower", owner of the forge until 1622, is commemorated by an iron grave slab dated that year at Cowden church. His successor, also John, sold the estate to Edward Payne in 1628, but the Bottings remained involved: Edmund Botting was lessee, and possibly ironmaster, of the forge from 1645 to 1656.
1790s: design and construction
In c. late 1791 or early 1792, Sperling is recorded by Christian Ignatius Latrobe as visiting the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Christian's brother, at his home in London. At c. 27, Latrobe, who was at that time a pupil of S. P. Cockerell, was a year younger than Sperling. He commissioned Latrobe to design and build a new country house on the site of the Bower. Latrobe had previously worked on country house re-modellings, including at Daylesford, but this was his first independent commission.
Works began in 1792, as denoted by the house's Greek inscription which, in dating its construction in Olympiads and naming the architect, is unique in Britain.
Because of the loss of Latrobe's papers during his 1795 emigration, little is known of the details of the house's construction. Trinder describes Hammerwood's form as comprising "a large, Palladian central block (corps de logis) accentuated by a giant order of shallow pilasters flanked by low arcaded wings terminated in tetrastyle porticoes, while an asymmetric service wing stretches toward the northeast, hidden behind the bulk of the house."
Latrobe's use of Greek orders in the design was advanced and unorthodox. For the central portico, he employed a modified version of the Ionic order and antae (pilasters) of the Erechtheum at Athens, with the columns left unfluted and the antae capitals simplified. The end pavilions are bold, Doric temples, influenced by the temples at Paestum, which Latrobe may have witnessed during a visit to Naples, and at Delos, the mythological birthplace of Apollo.
Whereas the original Paestum Doric order had fully fluted column shafts, Latrobe's column shafts are fluted only at the base and the top, above the necking band. The capitals are made in Coade stone. These partially fluted, or "unfinished," column shafts appear to derive from the Doric Temple of Apollo at Delos, as discovered by Julien-David Le Roy. Behind the Doric columns, at the corners of the small temples, Latrobe used the bold and primitive anta order of the Paestum temple, with its flaring, cavetto-like capital, as published by Thomas Major.
Pevsner observed that the columns were "patently inspired by the then very recent work of such men as Ledoux and Brongniart", and described Hammerwood as "a demonstration of primeval force".
1800–1921: Victorian estate
In c. 1801, Hammerwood was purchased by Magens Dorrien Magens (1761–1849), a London merchant banker who had sat as a Tory MP for Carmarthen for just six months in 1796; he was unseated after his opponent lodged a successful election petition. He would later sit for Ludgershall, a rotten borough in Wiltshire, from 1804 to 1812. Upon his death at Hammerwood in May 1849, aged 87, he left Hammerwood to his son, John Dorrien Magens, who as chairman of the board of the East Grinstead Railway Company (EGR) was responsible for the connection of East Grinstead to the railway system at Three Bridges in 1855. It is likely that extensions to the house, specifically to the north-east service wing, took place under the ownership of the Dorrien Magens family, and census records from the 1840s indicate at least ten indoor staff during the period.
John Dorrien Magens sold Hammerwood to Oswald Augustus Smith (1826–1902; of Smith's Bank, later part of NatWest) in June 1864 for £37,250 (equivalent to £4,091,989 in 2025), of which £10,000 was for the timber. In 1865, the Smiths engaged S. S. Teulon with the intention of remodelling the house to their taste. Amongst other more subtle changes to the building, this included raising the attic over the central block to create a low third floor, whilst preserving Latrobe's façade. Work began on 8 May 1865; scholars Snadon and Fazio aver that "Teulon integrated his additions so carefully with the existing fabric that it is difficult at first glance to discern them."
Maintaining the 2,510-acre (1,020 ha) estate of parkland, arable farmland and woods, Smith also installed a gas system for the lighting of the house, and fully insulated the newly raised roof.
The Smiths were also considerable local philanthropists. An 1893 article described the estate under Smith as a largely self-contained community, referring to Hammerwood as "the centre of a little kingdom" of which Smith was "the reigning monarch," noting its own workers' housing, school, and church.
First paying for a Chapel of Ease for the three local parishes of East Grinstead, Forest Row and Hartfield, in 1873, the Smiths commissioned Richard Norman Shaw to design a village school and chapel for 100 children; in 1875 for the Vicarage; and in 1880 for St Stephen's Church, Hammerwood, to the design of E. P. Loftus Brock. In 1892, Oswald Augustus provided for the rebuilding of St Peter's Church, Holtye, in memory of his late wife (Rose Sophia Vansittart, 1832–1892); in 1893 for the rebuilding of the Countess of Thanet's Almshouses on Holtye Common, and at the end of the 19th century for a new building for the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.
1921–1982: decline and dereliction
In 1921, the remains of the estate were taken up by Lt. Col. Stephen Hungerford Pollen CMG (1868–1935) after a career in the British Army. Pollen had been ADC to Lords Lansdowne and Elgin, respective Viceroys of India, winning medals for service in that country and South Africa, and serving in the Tirah Expedition in 1897. He was later the chairman of British Aluminium. His family were the first residents to enjoy an electricity supply and water from the mains. There remained a full complement of twelve indoor staff for the duration of the Pollens' time at Hammerwood, and they contributed the land, and a quarter of the costs, for the building of the Hammerwood and Holtye Village Hall.
After the death of Lt. Col. Pollen in March 1935, the house was sold to Harold Kirwan-Taylor (1895–1981), a surgeon, and his wife, Elizabeth. Like many large houses, Hammerwood was requisitioned for use by the armed forces during the Second World War, becoming home to 200 soldiers, including the cricketer Denis Compton, and a contingent from the Canadian Army. No. 660 Squadron RAF operated from an airstrip to the north of the park from November 1943, and the SOE flew Westland Lysanders from the same strip for a time.
After the war, heavy taxation, a shortage of staff and ongoing rationing meant that country houses were now extremely difficult to sustain. In 1946, the Kirwan-Taylors divorced, and Hammerwood was put up for sale in May 1947. It was bought in August 1947 by John Chattell, who divided the house into eleven apartments, and broke up the remains of the estate. However, by the 1960s, dry and wet rot became increasingly problematic and the house uninhabitable; its listed building description, written after a visit in November 1953, noted that it was 'empty and boarded up'.
In 1973, Led Zeppelin bought Hammerwood at auction, intending to turn it into a recording studio and flats. Although the house served as a location for The Song Remains the Same, plans did not progress. Amidst significant vandalism, three tonnes of lead was removed from the roof, compromising it in fourteen places and allowing thousands of gallons of water to flow into the structure. The progression of the rot accelerated as rooves and ceilings collapsed. Hammerwood was boarded up in 1976, and put up for sale in 1978.
1982–present: restoration
Having been for sale for four years, the house was advertised in Country Life in June 1982, by this time in a very poor condition and including c. 20 acres (8.1 ha) of overgrown gardens. In July 1982, it was purchased by David Pinnegar (b. 1961), with the intention of restoring and opening it to visitors, and much of the early restoration work was undertaken together with his parents, Eileen and John Pinnegar. The house opened to the public in April 1983.
The restoration, much of which was undertaken by volunteers, won the Anne de Amodio award from the International Burgen Institute (now part of Europa Nostra) in 1984, and a silver medal from the Société d'Encouragement au Progrès in Paris in 1987. Except for a modest contribution by English Heritage and the Department of the Environment, private ownership restricted access to heritage grants; the restoration was instead funded almost solely by visitors, costing more than £140,000 between 1982 and 1989, making it one of the largest private restoration projects in Europe at the time. In his England's Thousand Best Houses (2003), Simon Jenkins would describe Mr Pinnegar as 'one of those eccentrics without whom half the houses in England would have vanished'.
In 1984, the house was given a rare copy of the Parthenon Frieze made by D. Brucciani & Co., which is displayed in the old kitchens, now known as the Elgin Room. The Great Storm of 1987 caused considerable damage. No. 656 Squadron AAC assisted in a delivery of new roof lead in 1988 using a Westland Lynx helicopter, in an operation covered by Blue Peter. Works continued into the new millennium and a programme of rolling restoration is ongoing.
Hammerwood today
The house and gardens have been open to the public since April 1983. A musical instrument collection is used for an annual programme of concerts, and the keyboards are tuned to an unequal temperament, upon which composers of the Classical and Romantic eras relied.
Hammerwood has been used extensively as a location for TV, feature films, fashion and photography, including for Knife Edge (2007), London Boulevard (2010), starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley, and work by Led Zeppelin, The Darkness, Victoria Beckham, Melanie C and Cheryl Cole. It has been used for fashion shoots and photography for Prada, John Lewis catalogues, Tim Walker for Vogue, and Country Life. It was used as the setting for the 1998 narcotics documentary Sacred Weeds.
In 2018, Hammerwood was the setting for Beyoncé's September cover shoot for Vogue, photographed by Tyler Mitchell, the first black photographer to shoot a cover in the magazine's history. A portrait from the shoot was later acquired by the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
In 2024, the house passed to Edward Pinnegar (b. 1996), and his wife, Sophie, marking the third generation of the family since its 1982 rescue.
Park and gardens
Hammerwood sits in Picturesque landscaped parkland, on a south-facing hill, with extensive views from the south-west to the south-east, its own southern façade looking across the valley to a stream where the iron forge which gave the estate its name once sat. A serpentine lake, artificially dammed from this stream as part of the 1790s landscaping, sits at the bottom of the valley with open parkland on either side; views of distant hills continue for two or three miles beyond.
The prospect was clearly attractive to John Sperling: Latrobe's brother, Christian Ignatius, wrote in his diary on 24 October 1792 that:
Mr. Sperling took me all round and across the woods to explain his intended plan of improvement. Nature has done a great deal for him. He has low and high woods, hills, vales, runs of water, springs &. but a little assistance from art is wanting to render this as delicious a Spot as any in the Kingdom.
Fazio and Snadon note Latrobe's 1794 reference to a 'very intimate' acquaintance with Humphry Repton (1752–1818), the English landscape designer, and suggest that many features of Hammerwood's landscape, including unobstructed views to the south which extend far further than the 1792 boundaries of the estate, align with Repton's ideas. Ring counts of oaks felled by the Great Storm of 1987 dated them to 1793 and 1796.
Formal terraces and informal ornamental gardens were made up in the 19th and 20th centuries, initially replacing the former sweep of parkland up to the frontage of the house shown on maps up to 1841. Oswald Augustus Smith, Hammerwood's owner from 1864 to 1902, was responsible for laying out the ornamental gardens to the east of the house. As the cousin of Augustus Smith, Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly and the founder of Tresco Abbey Gardens, where rhododendrons feature in the planting, he introduced them to Hammerwood and they remain today.
The Smiths planted the gardens with specimen trees and made up gravel paths through the bushes, shrubberies and woodland to the east. In 1927, a Yew Garden was introduced below the south terrace, since restored. Until the mid-20th century, the parkland on the valley slopes to the south of the lake was partially wooded; it was later partly cleared for arable cultivation, but is now being restored. A few scattered trees remain from the extensive pattern shown established on the map of 1808.
Entrances and approaches
As part of the landscaping undertaken by Sperling and Latrobe in the 1790s, a long, winding drive extending from Ashurst Wood which approached the house from the south was laid. In his study of Hammerwood, Trinder suggests that from the perspective created by this approach the pilasters on the central block create an optical illusion which leads the house to look larger than it is due to the inclusion of temple fronts on the wings. He describes the joint endeavours of Sperling and Latrobe as "a collective ego trip on a small budget ... the house, although of modest size for the time, is designed to look huge."
From the mid-19th century, coincidenting with John Dorrien Magens's development of the railway from East Grinstead, the southerly approach became less oft-used: the route from the railway town became more practical, via the East Grinstead–Tunbridge Wells road (now the A264), and the lane thence through the village of Hammerwood.
The southerly approach fell almost entirely out of use as the house became derelict, and some of it was given over to farmland in the 20th century. The former entrance lodge, known as Dog Gate Lodge (coordinates: 51°07′24″N 0°02′58″E), survives, as does the bridge which carries the drive over the feeder channel for the lake at the foot of the valley, at the site of the 17th century iron forge. The road leading east out of Ashurst Wood (now a dead end) is still called Hammerwood Road. There were also two secondary entrance drives to the house, from the north-west and north-east, now disused but shown on the tithe map of 1841.