Built / Designed For: Thomas Fuller

House & Family History: Brightling Park has been significantly reduced in size, in the process losing its great Rococo Saloon. The remaining part includes the oldest range (1699) of nine bays and two stories with a paneled parapet that faces the courtyard. Turner was a friend of the Fuller family and painted a number of watercolors of the Estate, including one entitled "View of Rosehill, Sussex," circa 1816, in the collection of the British Museum, London, with another (1810) by the same title in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Brightling is today noted for its horse trials.

Collections: The Romantic landscape painter, Joseph Mallord William Turner was engaged by Jack Fuller to capture the East Sussex landscape in drawings and watercolors. It's possible that Turner and Fuller met at the Petworth estate of the 3rd Earl of Egremont, who Fuller knew through their mutual involvement with the Sussex Yeomanry Cavalry. It's believed by some that Fuller's motivation was that he wanted illustrations for a history of East Sussex he was writing, which did not come to fruition. However, between 1810 and 1818 Turner created approximately 13 watercolor landscapes in and around Fuller's estate, Rose Hill. Many of the sketches are in notebooks now in the collection of the Tate Britain in London and can be viewed on their website. Fuller hired a number of Turner's sketches for 100 guineas and had them made into prints. All told, Fuller spent a vast sum of money on the works of Turner, who was already a successful artist and wealthy man at the time of their meeting. (This information by kind permission of Annette Lloyd Thomas. See her website on John "Mad Jack" Fuller: www.johnmadjackfuller.homestead.com/index.html).

Garden & Outbuildings: A colonnaded and domed Rotunda, the Observatory, and the 65-foot Obelisk are extant.

John Bernard (J.B.) Burke, published under the title of A Visitation of the Seats and Arms of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, among other titles: 2.S. Vol. I, p. 103, 1854.

House Listed: Grade II*

Park Listed: Grade II

Current Seat / Home of: Grissell family

Past Seat / Home of: Thomas Fuller, 18th century; John Fuller, 19th century.

Current Ownership Type: Individual / Family Trust

Primary Current Ownership Use: Private Home

House Open to Public: No

Phone: 014248-38-241

Fax: 01424-838-378

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.brightlingpark.co.uk

Historic Houses Member: No