Deene Park

Deene Park is a wonderful eclectic mix of architectural styles, having evolved through the centuries. Before the Norman Conquest and for 150 years afterwards the Manor of Deene belonged to the Abbey of Westminster and was used occasionally by the Abbot. In about 1215 it was let for the first time to Sir Ivo de Deene for the annual rent of £18 and an obligation to provide hospitality once a year for the Abbot and his household an agreement which continued unaltered for 750 years.

Various families, including the Colets and the Lyttons leased the property until it was acquired in 1514 by Sir Robert Brudenell (1461-1531), later Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. It has descended through the male line to the Brudenells of today who continued to pay the rent of £18 until 1970, when the property was enfranchised from the Church Commissioners for eleven years’ worth of rent – £198!

The house was built over six centuries and grew from a substantial quadrangular-plan medieval manor into a Tudor and Georgian mansion, whose main front now faces south across the Park and Lake. Successive generations have altered the house to suit their needs and have helped endow the collections within, which contain Tudor Manuscripts, Old Masters and Family Portraits, porcelain and much military memorabilia from the Crimean War.