The extraordinary rewilding of Knepp Castle

By coincidence, I arrive at Knepp Castle on the day that Isabella Tree’s new book Wilding is officially published. By the end of the afternoon, in the wake of huge pre-publication interest, Picador texts to tell her that the book has been assigned a fourth print run. Such success, I feel, as I bounce about on ‘safari’ through rough scrubland in the back of a Sixties Austrian Pinzgauer, is a manifestation of all that she and her husband Sir Charles Burrell have achieved at their West Sussex estate over the past 17 years.

The story begins back in 1985 when Charlie, then aged 22, inherited Knepp Castle and its surrounding 3,500 acres from his grandfather. Far from being a blessed bequest, Knepp was more of a poisoned chalice, haemorrhaging money as Britain turned towards intensive, industrialised farming practices. Over the course of the next 15 years, Charlie and, by then, Isabella, did what they could to modernise Knepp, investing in bigger and better machinery, buying modern breeds of dairy cow, diversifying into own-brand yogurt, cheese and ice cream, and eking out every last ounce of grain from the muddy, unyielding Sussex clay, until the threat of bankruptcy loomed too large. The farm was simply unsustainable.

And so, almost unconsciously at first, the rewilding of Knepp began. Isabella describes it as a process of ‘letting go’ whereby, in a giant leap of faith, all preconceptions about landscape and agriculture were surrendered, to give nature the space and opportunity once more to express itself. The scheme – all the more radical for being a mere 44 miles from London – was to be the first of its kind in Britain.

Since the project first took shape, Charlie and Isabella have evolved from amateur lovers of wildlife to dedicated conservationists, brimful of statistics about the catastrophic state of biodiversity in this country but quietly hopeful that it is not too late to reverse the decline. Knepp has become a showcase for their optimism, as birds, insects and other animals have returned in their droves to the now untamed landscape and begun to breed there. The estate boasts one of the largest concentrations of nightingales in the UK, the biggest breeding population of rare purple emperor butterflies, all five indigenous species of owl and, crucially, about 16 breeding male turtle doves, along with females and fledglings – the next most likely bird species to face extinction on British soil.

At the heart of the Knepp estate, however, is the castle, which is home to Charlie, Isabella, their two children (both currently at university and both showing distinct signs that they will follow their parents into conservation) and their rescue dog, Milo. It is a rambling, stately pile, resurrected in 1904 after the John Nash original was destroyed by fire, and set in fine Humphry Repton parkland complete with the Mill Pond – in reality a three-kilometre lake, once the largest body of water south of the Thames.

When Charlie inherited the castle, the interiors were stuck in a time warp and required a top-to-toe makeover – primarily to remove asbestos, install central heating, add bathrooms, rewire and relocate the kitchen to a central position within the house. Even though Isabella has an exceptional design pedigree – her grandmother was Nancy Lancaster, the one-time owner of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler and credited with the creation of English country-house style – she and Charlie employed the interior designer Chester Jones to help them refashion their home. ‘Chester was brilliant architecturally,’ recalls Isabella. ‘And he firmly encouraged us not to be too precious about the past.’ He also particularly loved Charlie’s collection of tribal art from Africa (his early childhood was spent in Zimbabwe) and Papua New Guinea (where the couple were married), and his collections of tropical seed pods and exotic insects and butterflies. These now feature as decorative accessories in many of the main rooms.

Grandly proportioned and displaying some elaborate interior architectural detailing, the house nonetheless feels very much a home. Bold patterned wallpaper plays a leading role in many of the rooms, offset against which are treasures from both sides of the family – not least an eclectic collection of modern art. Isabella’s father, Michael, was a proficient amateur artist and her mother, Lady Anne – who was a philanthropist and founder of the prison charity Fine Cell Work – was friends with numerous twentieth-century artists, including Lucian Freud. It was through her father’s side of the family that Isabella inherited the magnificent four-poster bed that is now in the main bedroom. It was slept in regularly by Winston Churchill during the war when he retreated from Chequers (too obvious a target by moonlight) to Ditchley Park, home of Isabella’s grandfather, the Conservative MP Ronald Tree.

Within the immediate castle grounds, a restored walled garden flourishes with a variety of fruit, vegetables and flowers, but the garden itself, designed by Georgia Langton, remains restrained. ‘As the Repton park comes almost to the front door, we wanted the garden to blend with the landscape as a cohesive whole,’ explains Isabella. Consequently, much use has been made of topiary and a range of shades of green, which draw the eye under the ancient cedars, across the lawns, beyond the ha-ha and down to the broad expanse of the Mill Pond, on the banks of which fallow deer have collected in the early summer sunshine.