Petworth House and Park

Reviews (1)
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Location:

Petworth House and Park, Petworth, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 9LR, UK

Ratings:
  • Staff Helpfulness
  • Ease of Access

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Features:
  • Accessible parking spaces
  • Accessible toilets
  • Changing Places
  • Help points
  • Lifts
  • Personal assistance
  • Step-free access

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Reviews (1)

IanLoynes IanLoynes

I visited Petworth house over the Easter weekend – Petworth house is run by the National Trust and I have to say I was very impressed, both at the access considerations but also at the house and gardens (and servant’s quarters!) well worth a visit. Fabulous gardens (all seemed to have accessible walkways) and the main Petworth house (ground Floor) has a circular arrangement of all the rooms set out with different forms of artwork – from paintings, to sculture, to amazing intricate wood carvings and artifacts like the worlds oldest globe of the world dating date to the 1500’d – when Amerca and Australia were largely unknown.

As for access – again very impressed, as I said the gardens and grounds seemed very good. It is a long walk from car park to the Petworth House, but they do have a minibus/van to transport people who have limited walking abilities. For me as a wheelchair user – it was fine and not too steep if you use a manual wheelchair.

The main house I only went in the ground floor (I don’t think they had a lift the 2nd/3rd floors but one of the guides said there wasn’t much to see there anyway – not sure if he was pacifying me or not!) – but access to the ground floor was completely fine – no problems at all – all level smooth access. So far as I saw, the main house is just about artwork (but amazingly diverse and well worth it with JMW Turners (he had a thing about Petworth), Gainsborough’s and wood carvings from Grinling Gibbons)

The cafe’s, toilets etc are in the servant’s quarters (along with old world kitchens and shop)
Toilet’s were fine – accessible toilet was plenty big enough for an electric chair and enough space to turn and do the door etc. The door operates via a touch sensor and locks the same. Flush and taps are also touch operated so really very good and better than I expected.

The shop is typical fare for national trust and was accessible – if a little confined if using a wheelchair.

There are two cafe’s – one is a small room (about 8 tables I think) and serves limited food (sandwiches, cakes, cream teas) and was accessible but quite confined again. But be aware this cafe only served hot drinks in paper mugs!

The other cafe is bigger and serves hot food. Access to this cafe is via 3 steps – BUT they have this amazing platform lift which recesses the steps into the wall and a platform lift comes out of the floor and works very well, very safely and quite quick as well. They said they had it specially designed to merge nicely into the decor and I have to say it really was very impressive indeed. See a couple of photos I have uploaded to show the lift working.

So – in summary – well worth a visit, more accessible than I expected and no real issues except for people with very limited walking range.

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