A long and illustrious history
Stoke Park Estate's recorded history dates over 1,000 years, to before the 1086 Domesday Book, with its ownership in a direct line of descent for 515 years from 1066 until 1581. But it wasn't until 1775 that the parkland began to take on its present form when John Penn, a soldier, scholar and poet whose family were the founders of Pennsylvania, inherited Stoke Park with its Manor House
Penn commissioned James Wyatt, the architect to King George III, to design the Palladian Mansion and monuments in the grounds, which were completed in 1795. It is reputed that the project was largely funded by the £130,000 thnew United States Government paid for his family's 26 million-acre plot in Pennsylvania in 1775.
