Southwest of Tonbridge and northeast of Royal Tunbridge Wells on the northern slopes of the Kentish Weald, sits the idyllic landscape of Penshurst. Built around the historic homestead of Penshurst Place, the home of the Sidney family built in 1341. Due to its pastoral and bucolic scenery and attachment to the Penshurst Place, many homes in the Penshurst locale are grand country manors with significant acerage, at price points upwards of £2 million!

The history of Penshurst is the history of Penshurst Place, built in 1341 by Sir John de Pulteney, a merchant and former mayor of London. He built the property for the sole purpose of its relative proximity to London and simultaneous access to the acres of arable land in the Kentish Weald. The manor was then gifted to the Sir William Sidney in 1552 by King Edward the VI, a former coutier of King Henry VIII. It was subsequently expanded to match the current design trends of Elizabethan England, including gables, red-brick facades, and ornate chimneys. The house still stands today, although remaining in private ownership, the wonderful historic house and intricate gardens are still open today for the general public!

Sir Philip Sidney is perhaps the most notable and most famous inheritor of the Penshurst Place Estate. Philip Sidney (1554–1586), was a courtier, soldier, and poet from Elizabethan England. Most famously, Sidney wrote the sonnet sequence ‘Astrophel and Stella’, inspired by the Italian Petrarchan sonnet style and method, written in 1582. These love sonnets are often regarded as the finest of the period, up there amongst William Shakespeare’s Love Sonnets. Sidney tragically died at 31 in 1586, after being injured the Battle of Zutphen in the Netherlands.

Penshurst falls under the Sevenoaks District Council in Kent. This council is still in the process of drafting their local plan, which will underpin the nature of development within the wider Penshurst locale. However, as drafts of the plan indicate, Penshurst falls under the functional floodplain path necessary for the Kent area - due to the proximity of the River Medway. Therefore, development in this area will be faced with environmental issues. However, the Penshurst Parish Council in 2023 has submitted to the Sevenoaks District Council 12 potential sites for the construction of affordable housing in the local area!