Midhurst and Petworth

Benvenuti nella zona

Petworth House and its deer park, the Cowdray ruins, the Weald & Downland Living Museum and Bignor's Roman mosaics

Midhurst is a small market town on the River Rother and home to the South Downs Centre, the National Park Authority's base and visitor centre. Across the river are the ruins of Cowdray, an early Tudor house visited by Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and gutted by fire in 1793. To the east, Petworth House holds a large art collection, with many paintings by J. M. W. Turner, in a deer park landscaped by Capability Brown.

South of Midhurst, the Weald & Downland Living Museum at Singleton has more than 50 rescued historic buildings, and West Dean Gardens have restored Victorian glasshouses. Bignor Roman Villa keeps some of the most complete mosaic floors in the country. Uppark, high on the Downs near the Hampshire border, and the Bronze Age barrows of the Devil's Jumps lie to the west.