The Park and Manor of Bignor were held from at least the mid-fourteenth century by the Earls of Arundel. Originally used as grounds to fatten deer, Bignor Park was bought in 1584 by Richard Pellatt of Steyning, who built the first house on the site, the only surviving relics of which are two finials at the west end of the walled garden. The property descended through his family until sold in 1712 to Nicholas Turner. Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806), prominent poet and novelist, spent her childhood at Bignor Park and it became the inspiration for many of her poems (see separate section).
Bignor Park remained in the Hawkins family for over a hundred years and his last descendant to live here was Mrs Josephine Johnstone. She became a widow and lived in the house with a number of servants (in 1911 there was a footman, a cook, three housemaids, a kitchenmaid, and a scullery maid). During World War One, Mrs Johnstone (now aged 71) set aside three adjacent rooms in the house (the drawing room, library and smoking room) as wards for a Red Cross hospital. This she paid for and ran herself, with the help of two trained nurses and Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses from local villages. A doctor visited daily. She set up the wards, along with an operating room and dispensary, in early August 1914, and the first patients arrived shortly afterwards.
By the end of 1917 there were 55 beds, with an average occupancy of 45, and 513 patients received treatment during the year. At the end of 1918 the number of beds was unchanged, average occupancy was 34, and 381 patients had been treated. For her work at Bignor Park Hospital, Mrs Johnstone was awarded the OBE in 1918. The hospital closed in January 1919.
Bignor Park has been with the Bigham family since 1926, when it was bought by Charles Bigham, second Viscount Mersey (the first Viscount Mersey was the judge at the inquiries into the sinking of RMS Titanic and RMS Lusitania). The second Viscount was an author, traveller and collector. His son Edward, third Viscount Mersey, moved to Bignor with his family in 1959 and his wife Katherine, Baroness Nairne, renovated the house and garden.
The Mersey family at Bignor Park care a great deal about the environment and encouraging wildlife. We have now converted over nine hundred acres of the estate to organic and four miles of new hedgerows have been planted.
With the help of a grant from Natural England, and the support and advice of the National Park Authority and Sussex Wildlife Trust, we have reverted over two hundred acres back to heathland and acid grassland (over the last hundred years thousands of acres of heathland have disappeared in England, representing a huge loss to the natural habitat of a wide range of species). It is now grazed by organic cattle and sheep in order to encourage a habitat for among others: ground-nesting birds, woodlarks, stone chats, Dartford warblers, insects such as digger wasps, minotaur beetles, tiger beetles, silver-studded blue butterflies and of course flora such as heather. We are proud to say that we now host more than a quarter of the entire UK population of
drawn up by Dr Phillip Masters of ACTA, whose CV includes the management plan for Avebury World Heritage site. The lake has been desilted and shallows created to encourage aquatic life, and a programme begun for managing copses and roundels, with over 150 new parkland trees planted. Chestnut coppice is encouraged where possible as part of a forestry programme managed by Andrew Wright of English Woodlands, with help from the Forestry Commission.
Bignor Park was recently awarded the Woodpecker Trophy for Conservation. And the task continues!
Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) was a Sussex writer who lived through the tumultuous period of the French Revolution and produced some of the most accomplished and influential poetry and novels of her period. Her family seat, Bignor Park, remained a focal point for her, even though she did not live here past her youth. Following the ways of the times, the estate passed to her brother on the death of her father. But she set many of her poems at and around Bignor Park, and mourned what she saw as her personal loss through her sonnets.
Written at Bignor Park in Sussex, in August, 1799.
Throughout her life, Smith remained deeply attached to the South Downs. Besides Bignor Park, she lived in a variety of Sussex locations: Stoke Park near Guildford as a child; and Woolbeding, Wyke, Brighton, Storrington, Frant, and Elsted near Godalming as an adult. She is buried at Stoke Church, near Guildford. Her poetry is suffused with a love for and understanding of Sussex in general and the South Downs in particular. Smith wrote three widely-admired collections of poetry. She also wrote eleven novels and five books for children. Her novels combine Gothic images with realist plots, and are politically radical. They are also modern in their use of a narrator who often takes center stage. Her works for children assume that her young audience was capable of understanding both science and poetry and encouraged experimentation, both scientific and literary.
Charlotte Smith of Bignor Park in Sussex, 1784.
Bignor Park is best viewed
