Walking Down the Garden Avenue at Knole

Knole has always excited a range of different reactions. Henry VIII liked it so much that he forced Thomas Cranmer, his Archbishop of Canterbury, to hand it to him in 1538. Yet, the following century, the diarist John Evelyn was so depressed by the greyness of this 'greate old fashion'd house' that he hurried out into the sunshine. In the 18th century, Horace Walpole was impressed by Knole's 'beautiful decent simplicity which charms one' but on a later visit decided that it 'has neither beauty nor prospects'.

These mixed emotions can partly be explained by the many faces Knole presents on different days and at different times of the year. On a dull winter's day, as you ride the crest of the knoll in front of the house and the north front looms in sight, Knole's sprawling mass of sodden Kentish ragstone strikes a sombre note. But on a sunny summer's day, the south front, with its colonnade of seven lightly coloured marble arches, dances to a very different tune.

The Sackvilles and Knole

Knole was rebuilt and then furnished in three main bursts of activity, each separated by around a hundred years. In the early 17th century, Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, transformed the late medieval archbishop's palace into a Renaissance mansion. Towards the end of the 17th century, his great-great-grandson, the 6th Earl, acquired Knole's unique collection of Stuart furniture and textiles through his office as Lord Chamberlain. And then, towards the end of the 18th century the 6th Earl's great-grandson, the 3rd Duke, added Old Masters bought on the Grand Tour to Italy and portraits commissioned from contemporary English artists such as Reynolds and Gainsborough.

Visitors today see a house and collection little changed since the 3rd Duke's day. By the end of the 17th century, the Sackvilles had withdrawn to private apartments on the ground floor and tended to live there rather than in the more formal, public rooms on the first floor - today's showrooms. The very fact that large areas of Knole were inhabited only intermittently from the end of the 17th century and that the furniture therefore remained under dust sheets for long periods, accounts for its miraculous survival.

Knole comes to the National Trust

In 1946, the Sackville family handed over Knole to the National Trust with an endowment towards its maintenance. The family retained possession of the park and many of the contents of the house and were granted a 200-year lease on various private apartments within the house.

Vita Sackville-West and Knole

Vita Sackville-West had grown to love Knole's many faces from her happy childhood there. In 'Knole and the Sackvilles' (1922), she wrote that Knole 'has a deep inward gaiety of some very old woman who has always been beautiful, who has had many lovers and seen many generations come and go … It is above all an English home,' she continued, 'It has the tone of England; it melts into the green of the garden turf, into the tawnier green of the park beyond, into the blue of the pale English sky.'
On display in the Great Hall is a facsimile of the bound manuscript of Virginia Woolf's novel 'Orlando'. The novel is dedicated to Vita Sackville-West and, in the words of Vita's son, Nigel Nicolson, it is 'the longest and most charming love letter in literature'. Vita is the eponymous hero/heroine (Orlando changes gender over the four centuries in which the novel is set) and Orlando's ancestral home is a house, like Knole, with a legendary 365 rooms. The pages are threaded through with similarly specific references to Knole and to its past and present incumbents. It ends with Orlando taking possession of the house whereas, in fact, Vita had been denied ownership of her beloved Knole because the house was passed through the male line.
In 1930 Vita fell in love with Sissinghurst Castle and bought it, along with 4,000 acres of farmland. Together Vita and her husband, Harold Nicolson, made a garden which reflected their different personalities - Harold being a classicist and Vita a romantic. Today, Sissinghurst Castle Garden is also owned by the National Trust.

Foe further information please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/...

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Taken on: October 1, 2008

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Camera:	Nikon D80
Aperture:	f/25.0
Exposure Time:	0.1 sec (1/10)
Focal Length:	32mm (35mm equivalent: 48mm)
ISO:	1600
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Spot
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