Англиядағы Грек стиліндегі Hammerwood Park үйі

Country house near East Grinstead, Sussex, England

Hammerwood Park is a country house in Hammerwood, near East Grinstead, in East Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building. One of the first houses in England to be built in the Greek Revival architectural style, it was built in 1792 as the first independent work of Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Described by Nikolaus Pevsner as a 'demonstration of primeval force', the house was owned by Led Zeppelin from 1973 until 1982.

The land previously comprised part of a previous estate known as The Bower, probably named after a family called Atte Boure, who are listed as paying tax to Edward I in the 1290s, a substantial landholding which included parts of the parishes of East Grinstead and Hartfield. Sometime during the 1500s the owners, the Botting family, founded an iron forge to the east of the ponds in the valley to the south of the current house (coordinates: ). The forge may have been in existence in 1558, when Hugh Botting left "two tons of yron" in his will; it was working in 1653 but ruined by 1664. The dam has been recorded as long. In 1693, a part of the woodland adjoining the Ashdown Forest was felled to clear the grounds of the former house on the present site. The estate, which is thought to have been part of a medieval deer park, later passed to other families and in 1766 the owner paid window tax on forty one windows, making the Bower the fifth largest out of the 150 taxable residences in East Grinstead. It seems likely that the present Bower House, a Tudor farmhouse in the village of Hammerwood, is of no direct relation. There existed a previous building on the site of what was to become Hammerwood Lodge; foundations and walls in the west of the central block of the current house have been dated to pre 1792, and it would seem likely that this was the principal dwelling of the Bower.

In late 1791 or early 1792, John Sperling (1763–1851) is recorded by Christian Ignatius Latrobe as visiting architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, his brother, in London. Nikolaus Pevsner also observed that the columns were "patently inspired by the then very recent work of such men as Ledoux and Brongniart". There is some doubt over whether Hammerwood was finished by this point; it is possible that the Sperlings supervised its completion in Latrobe's absence. 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 (equating to approximately £3.3 million in 2021 pounds), of which £10,000 was for the timber. In 1865, the Smiths contracted 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 comment that "Teulon integrated his additions so carefully with the existing fabric that it is difficult at first glance to discern them".</small>

Whilst maintaining the 2,000 acre estate of parkland, arable farmland and woods, Oswald Augustus also installed a gas system for the lighting of the house, and fully insulated the newly raised roof. Initially paying for a Chapel of Ease for the three local parishes of East Grinstead, Forest Row and Hartfield, in 1873, he provided for a village school for 100 children; in 1875 for the Vicarage; in 1880 for St Stephen's Church, Hammerwood, to the design of E. P. Loftus Brock, at the cost of £7,431, the first vicar being Rev. Clement Colby Woodland of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; in 1892 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. Additionally, much of the village of Hammerwood which exists today (the population of which reached a peak of 438 in 1891), and some of the houses to the east of the village of Ashurst Wood, were built during Smith's tenure as tied cottages for estate workers. The Rev. George Ferris Whidborne (1845–1910) purchased Hammerwood from Oswald Augustus shortly before the latter's death. Impressed by the unusual and abundant wildlife, he moved his family from Dorset; the Whidbornes would live at Hammerwood from 1901 to 1921. His eldest son was killed in the First World War; all three were at different times awarded the MC. In 1919, the prep school in Tunbridge Wells which the Whidborne children had attended burned down; St Andrew's moved to Hammerwood whilst new premises were found in Forest Row. Old boys remembered playing cricket against Ashdown House, by now a prep school, on the lawn at Hammerwood. However, in 1918 death duties had compelled Margaret Whidborne to sell 843 acres of the estate (almost half of the land). Three years later a further 1,300 acres of farms were sold, the house disposed of and the contents auctioned. Two floors of servants' quarters on the north east service wing which had been added during the 19th century were demolished and, left with 320 acres of adjoining park and woodland, the name of the estate was changed to Hammerwood Park; its place as a focal point of local life began to decline.

In 1921, the remains of the estate – comprising the house and 329 acres of land – were taken up by Lt. Col. Stephen Hungerford Pollen CMG (1868–1935) after a career in the British Army, having 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. His family were the first residents to enjoy an electricity supply and water from the mains. There remained a full complement of eleven or twelve – by differing accounts – indoor staff for the duration of the Pollens' time at Hammerwood, and he contributed the land, and a quarter of the building costs, for the building of the Hammerwood and Holtye Hall. It is a strange coincidence that one of Lt. Col. Pollen's ancestors, Richard Pollen, brother of Sir John Pollen, Bt., married the daughter of S. P. Cockerell, the architect under whom Latrobe studied. In 1973, rock band Led Zeppelin bought Hammerwood at auction, intending to turn it into a recording studio and flats. Although the house did make an appearance at the beginning of the film The Song Remains the Same, their plans did not progress. Amid significant vandalism, three tonnes of lead were removed from the roof, compromising it in fourteen locations and allowing thousands of gallons of water to flow into the structure. The progression of the rot accelerated, leading the house to become increasingly structurally unsafe. Hammerwood was boarded up in 1976, and put on sale in 1978. 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. 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, with No. 656 Squadron AAC assisting in a delivery of new roof lead in 1988 using a Westland Lynx, in an operation covered by Blue Peter. 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 entirely from visitors, costing more than £140,000 between 1982 and 1989, making it the largest private restoration project in Europe at the time. Works continued into the new millennium and a programme of rolling restoration is ongoing.

The house and gardens have been open to the public since 1983. Guided tours focus upon the historical context of the house, the ancient mythological and religious origins of the Greek Revival, connections with Freemasonry, the Agricultural Revolution, the Picturesque movement, and issues of interpretation of the Borghese Vase, scenes from which are transcribed in Coade stone plaques in the porticos, and the Parthenon Frieze. An extensive 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. The estate is used regularly as a film location for TV, feature films, fashion and photography. Films have included the 2007 horror movie Knife Edge, the 2010 film London Boulevard starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley, and work by Led Zeppelin, The Darkness, Victoria Beckham, Melanie C, and Cheryl Cole. It served as the setting for the 1998 narcotics documentary Sacred Weeds. Hammerwood has also been used for fashion shoots and photography for Prada, John Lewis catalogues, Tim Walker for Vogue and editorials for other magazines (including, amongst others, Country Life). It served as the location for Beyoncé’s September 2018 Vogue cover shoot.

Quote box|width=27%|quote = Mr. Sperling took me all round and across the woods to explain his intended plan of improvement. Nature has done a good deal for him. He has low and high woods, hills, vales, runs of water, springs etc. but a little assistance from art is wanting to render this as
delicious a Spot as any in the Kingdom. |source = <small>The observations of the architect's brother, Christian Ignatius Latrobe, writing on his visit to the site of the new house on 24 October 1792. During the period of dereliction much of the garden (including kitchen gardens and greenhouses to the north) became severely overgrown, and the parkland was used as grazing land (with the Library employed as a grain store). Much of the ornamental garden to the south and east has been restored and replanted, with work done by volunteers from the National Trust Activities Group (NTAG) and the London Wildlife Trust (and, in the replanting of trees, by the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust, the Men of the Trees, the Countryside Commission and the South East Electricity Board after the Great Storm of 1987). Forming part of the High Weald AONB since October 1983, the parkland and gardens were given Grade II listed status in 1987.

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 (probably coincidental with John Dorrien Magens' development of the railway from East Grinstead), the southerly approach became less oft used as the route from the railway town became more practical via the East Grinstead–Tunbridge Wells road (which was to become the B2110, and then 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; more recently the drive has been obstructed by hedges along its length. The former entrance lodge, known as Dog Gate Lodge (coordinates: ), survives, together with the bridge (at the site of the earlier iron forge) which carried the drive over the feeder channel for the ornamental lake at the foot of the valley. 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.