This fine Elizabethan mansion has been in the hands of the Bagot family for around 700 years.
Levens Hall was built around a 13th century pele tower and was considerably enlarged in the 16th century. Further additions were carried out at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Hall has ornate plaster ceilings and marvellous oak panelling in most of the rooms. There is splendid Jacobean furniture and Cordova leather wall coverings.
Works of art include paintings by Rubens and Lely and watercolours by Peter de Wint.
The Hall is a family home.
The museum includes the costume worn by Charles Bagot at the Coronation of George IV. There is a collection of clocks, which is an interest of the present owner Charles Henry Bagot.
The Redman Dressing Room has the earliest known English patchwork, dating from 1703.
The historic Topiary Gardens are world famous.
They were laid out by Guillaume Beaumont from 1694 and his design remains virtually unchanged to this day. There over 90 individual pieces of yew and box topiary including chess pieces, peacocks, cones, spirals and pyramids, with some reaching over 20 feet high. The task of trimming the topiary takes six weeks every year.
A thick castellated hedge separates the Hall from the garden to the south and there are also immense beach hedges. The parterre has box-edged beds and is bedded out twice a year with over 15,000 plants.
A Fountain Garden was laid out in 1994.
Black fallow deer roam in the park, together with the famous Bagot goats - a rare breed with long curved horns. There is also a play area for children and a fine collection of working steam engines can be seen on house Open Days.
