Petworth GU28 9LR (20 miles)

The vast late 17th-century mansion is set in a beautiful 283-hectare (700-acre) deer park, landscaped by Capability Brown and immortalised in Turner’s paintings. The house contains the National Trust’s finest collection of pictures, with numerous works by Turner, Van Dyck, Reynolds and Blake, ancient and Neo-classical sculpture, fine furniture and carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The servants’ quarters contain fascinating kitchens (including a copper batterie de cuisine of more than 1,000 pieces) and other service rooms.