Field Place
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| In
1792, Percy
Bysshe Shelley
was born
at Field Place,
a broad-fronted
country house
set on an
estate/working
farm in Sussex.
As a child,
Shelley freely
roamed its
several farms
and heavily
wooded grounds.
Although
Field Place
was
"improved" by
successive
owners over
the years,
the house
has now been
meticulously
restored
to its eighteenth-century
condition
by Kenneth
Prichard
Jones, a past
president
of the Keats-Shelley
Memorial
Association.
The house
is composed
of several
architectural
elements
(for a thorough
analysis
of the architecture,
see K. Prichard
Jones, "The
Influence
of Field
Place and
its Surroundings
upon Percy
Bysshe Shelley"
in
the Keats-Shelley
Review [8
(1993-4):
132-50]).
The original
thirteenth-century
medieval
section
held the
kitchen
in Shelley’s
time. |
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| There
is also a
fourteenth-century
central addition
(seen here
between the
two chimneys
in the ground
view), |
|
|
| and
a late-sixteenth/early-seventeenth
century brick
wing which
holds the
room in which
Shelley was
born. |
|
|
| The views from the house are lovely and open, partly due
to such eighteenth-century landscape innovations as the
haha fence. |
|
|
| Although we did not have access to the interior of the
house, a watercolor of the drawing room done by Elizabeth
Shelley in 1856 gives a good sense of its light and airy
quality. |
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|
| To the north of the house is a lovely walled garden, |
|
|
| and to the northwest is the stable area; here stands the
tree under which young Master Shelley pretended to play
cards with the groom. |
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| Further
on is the
pond where
the farm
horses would
stop for
a drink after
a long day's
work, |
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| and a lane leading to the farm buildings. |
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