Clive Pearson, younger son of Viscount Cowdray, bought Parham from Mary, 17th Baroness Zouche in her own right,[1] and he and his wife Alicia opened the house to visitors in 1948, after the Second World War when it had also been home to evacuee children and Canadian soldiers.

Mr and Mrs Pearson, followed by their daughter Veronica Mary Tritton (died 1993),[2] spent more than 60 years restoring Parham and filling it with a collection of period furniture, paintings and textiles, also acquiring items that had originally belonged to the house.

In June 1942, the War Department requisitioned the house and estate, relocating the evacuees to make way for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions.

Lady Emma Barnard, the daughter of Benjamin Guinness, 3rd Earl of Iveagh, inherited the house from Mrs Tritton, who was her great-aunt, and lives in one wing with her family.

The radical reformer Henry 'Orator' Hunt was buried on Saturday 21 February 1835 in the churchyard of St Peter's Church in Parham Park.