Penshurst Place is six miles north-west of Tunbridge Wells and easily the best day-trip from the town. The fortified manor house at its core dates from the 1340s; the surrounding wings are Tudor and Jacobean. It has been the seat of the Sidney family since 1552 and is still lived in.
The eleven-acre walled garden is one of the finest formal gardens in England, divided into a series of "rooms" — an Italian garden, a magnolia garden, a peony border, a tulip garden, a nut walk — by hedges of yew and beech. The house is open from Easter to October.