Knole House

P3

West view of Knole House in 2007

Knole House is a classified as a cultural monument is a fine Grade I manor house on the outskirts of Sevenoaks in the north- west of the county of Kent in England. Noteworthy is the large part since the early 17th century unaltered state of conservation of the property and its facilities.

History

Knole is first mentioned in 1281 in records of Lambeth Palace. The location on a hill (English knoll ) to have given the estate its name. The mansion was Geoffrey, Lord de Say about is whose grandson was appointed in 1447 to Lord Say and Sele. His son, William Fiennes sold the property in 1456 to Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. This had the house 1456-1486 to expand to a fixed, two-storey palace. The building was said to be a strict fortress-like plant around a patio and have owned a large hall, a large chamber and a tower armored gatehouse. The adjacent wildlife park was built from 1465. Knole remained in the possession of the archbishops to 1538, when Henry VIII had to give the house of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. The king had Knole from 1543 to expand to accommodate his entourage. From this period the system of Green Court with the three-storey gate tower dates. 1561 was transferred I. Knole to the Earl of Leicester, who rejected the estate but what Elisabeth Knole in 1566 gave to her cousin Thomas Sackville Elizabeth. This had the house from 1605 to 1608 greatly expand. Knole remained for over 400 years in the family of Sackville. The writer Vita Sackville -West was born in Knole. 1945 was the fourth Lord Sackville the house including the garden and the adjacent, about ten acres of gardens at the National Trust. In one part of the house the family Sackville has eternal right of residence as a lodger. The actual park is still in private ownership.

Parts of the manor house can be visited from April to October. 2012 starts a meticulous restoration of the house, which is among the largest projects of the National Trust.

Plant

Knole House is located on a plateau in the middle of the game park and offers views over the park and the surrounding countryside of Kent and the North Downs. The sprawling complex has 365 rooms as days in the year, 52 staircases how the year weeks and seven yards as the days of the week, making it a so-called " calendar house".

The driveway through the gate tower in the northwestern main facade leads into the turf -covered Green Court, which was established in the 16th century. Behind the farm is the original palace from the 15th century, the core of which is the medieval manor house. Set around two courtyards mansion is mostly of pebble sand stone built, only the upper floors of the east wing are made ​​of plastered timber. When remodeling by Thomas Sackville, the building received a new roof and the cultivation of the stables in the north of the Green Court, while the state rooms have been set up in the south wing. 1823 the orangery was built on the southwest corner of the Green Court.

Interior

The halls and rooms have magnificent carvings, stucco ceilings, tapestries and the most comprehensive collection of furniture of the Stuart period. Several rooms are fully furnished with chairs, stools and tables from the Whitehall Palace, and from Hampton Court Palace. The painting collection includes images of van Dyck, Thomas Gainsborough, Peter Lely and Godfrey Kneller. The Reynolds space comprises a collection of over ten paintings by Joshua Reynolds.

One of the most magnificent rooms that can be visited include

• The entrance hall with a carved rood screen with Minstrel's Gallery
• The Leicester Gallery with chairs from the early 17th century and the Knole sofa with adjustable armrests
• The bedroom of the Venetian ambassador with the gilded, made ​​for James II poster bed
• The bedroom of the king decorated with another poster bed with gold and silver curtains and knitted with pure silver and gold brocade furniture from the last quarter of the 17th century.
• The ballroom with the Portrait Gallery of Sackvilles

Garden

In the south and east of the manor house is surrounded by a ten- acre garden, which is surrounded by a built in 16th century wall. The western half was created in the 18th century with formal parterre and gravel paths, the eastern half is densely covered with trees. About 250 meters southeast of the walled also, in 1769 for the first time drawn on a map kitchen garden is a gardener's house.

Park

From all sides the house and garden are surrounded by the sprawling, 378 -acre park. The park is situated in a gently undulating, rising from the northwest to the southeast area, which consists of open woodland and meadows with individual trees. Since 1465 it is used as a wildlife park, its present size and shape he received in 1826. In the northeast and southwest it is bordered by avenues, to the northeast is a stone wall from the 19th century added. From the tree lined Mount Echo in the northeast to the kitchen garden in the south extends the 1923 scale golf course. The park is considered as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, since the 15th century lives in him a semi- tame today, about 500 -strong herd of fallow deer.

Knole House in literature and film

Vita Sackville-West described Knole House in her work Knole and the Sackville, which was published in 1922. When her father died in 1928, they could not inherit the property, because the male succession occurred. Vita Sackville-West has never got over this loss, even the purchase of Sissinghurst Castle, it concluded with her husband Harold Nicolson in 1930, was only a small consolation.

Her friend Virginia Woolf took the history of the house and the Sackville family in their fictional biography Orlando as its base. In the Great Hall a facsimile of the bound manuscript of Orlando is issued.

The mansion served several times as a film set, including the British historical drama The Other Boleyn Girl. In January 1967, the Beatles turned the park Promotion films for their songs Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane, which are expected to be the first music videos.