Location Knole is located at the southern end of
Sevenoaks, in the
Weald of west
Kent. To the north, the land slopes down to the
Darenth valley and the narrow fertile
pays of
Holmesdale, at the foot of the
North Downs. The land around Sevenoaks itself has sandy soils, with woodland that was used in the
Middle Ages in the traditional Wealden way, for
pannage, rough pasture and timber. The Knole estate is located on well-drained soils of the
Lower Greensand. It was close enough to London to allow easy access for owners who were involved with affairs of state, and it was on "sounde, parfaite, holesome grounde", in the words of
Henry VIII. It also had a plentiful supply of spring water. The knoll of land in front of the house gives it a sheltered position. The wooded nature of the landscape could provide not only timber but also grazing for the meat needs of a grand household. Moreover, it made an excellent
deer park, being emparked before the end of the 15th century. The dry valley between the house and the settlement of Sevenoaks also makes a natural deer course, for a combined race and hunt between two dogs and fallow deer.
Early history There is evidence of the prehistoric at Knole but, as is the case for the surrounding area, no Roman. Much was going on in and around Sevenoaks in the medieval period and major landowners included Roger Bigod and then Otho de Grandison who moved abroad, his estates being broken up. It may be then that the Manor of Knole became a separate entity as the earliest reference to it currently known was not until 1364. In 1419, the estate, which then spread over 800 acres, had been bought by
Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, and by 1429, he had extended it to 1,500 acres. The estate remained in the hands of the Langley family, it seems, until the mid-1440s when it had been acquired by
James Fiennes, 1st Baron Saye and Sele. The circumstances of this transfer are not known, but it is clear that Lord Saye and Sele was also enlarging the estate by further, sometimes forcible, purchases of adjoining parcels of land. For example, in 1448 one Reginald Peckham was forced to sell land at Seal (at the north-eastern end of the current estate) to Saye "on threat of death". Forcible land transfers recur in the later history of the house, including that between Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer and
Henry VIII. ,
Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Saye and Sele seems to have begun a building project at Knole, but it was incomplete by his death in 1450. His ruthless exploitation of his powerful position in Kent was a motivating factor in the
Jack Cade Rebellion. Saye and Sele was executed on the authority of a hastily assembled commission initiated by
Henry VI in response to the demands of Cade's rebels when they arrived in London.
Archbishop Bourchier's House James Fiennes's heir, William, second
Baron Saye and Sele, sold the property for 400 marks (£266 13s 4d) in 1456 to
Thomas Bourchier,
Archbishop of Canterbury. He already had a substantial property in the area,
Otford Palace, but the drier, healthier site of Knole attracted him.
Archbishop Bourchier probably began building work by making substantial renovations of an existing house. Between 1456 and 1486, Bourchier and his bailiff for the Otford bailiwick, John Grymesdyche, oversaw substantial building work on the current house. The remodelled house must have been suitable for the archbishop by 1459, when he first stayed there, but he based himself there increasingly in his later years, particularly after 1480, when, at the age of about 69, he appointed a suffragan. In 1480, Thomas
Cardinal Bourchier, as he had become in 1473, gave the house to the
Archdiocese of Canterbury. In subsequent years, Knole House continued to be enlarged, with the addition of a large courtyard, now known as Green Court, and a new entrance tower. These were long thought to be the work of one of Bourchier's successors, but the detailed study by Alden Gregory suggests that Bourchier was responsible. He took advantage of the political stability that followed the restoration of
Edward IV in 1471 to invest further in his property.
Knole in the Tudor period After
Cardinal Bourchier's death in 1486, Knole was occupied by the next four archbishops:
John Morton (1487–1500),
Henry Deane (1501–1503),
William Warham (1504–1532) and finally
Thomas Cranmer. Sir
Thomas More appeared in revels there at the court of Archbishop Morton, whose cognizance (motto) of
Benedictus Deus appears above and to either side of a large late Tudor fireplace there. Henry VII was an occasional visitor, as in early October and midwinter 1490. Cardinal Bourchier had enclosed the park with a pale to make a deer park and it seems that
Henry VIII used to visit Archbishop Warham to hunt deer. After the death of Warham and before the appointment of his successor, Henry found his properties in nearby
Otford and Knole useful residences for his daughter
Mary, at the time of the protracted divorce from her mother,
Catherine of Aragon. She was at Knole from 27 November 1532 to 5 March 1533. Warham's successor as archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, acquired all the temporalities of the See of Canterbury. However, these brought with them substantial debts and complex demands of land management, set against a backdrop of massive land transfers associated with the
dissolution of the monasteries and broader assaults on church wealth. Cranmer was, therefore, unable to withstand repeated demands from Henry VIII for exchanges of land. This was a long-term process stretching between 1536 and 1546, so that there is no need to imagine that Henry wanted Knole, specifically, for example as a deer park. In 1537 the manor of Knole, and five other manors and a number of
advowsons and
chantries largely forming the archbishop's
bailiwick of Otford, were 'exchanged' with Henry VIII. In return, Cranmer received a package primarily consisting of former abbeys and priories between Canterbury and Dover. Knole was granted to
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, in August 1547 at the start of his nephew
Edward VI's reign, but following Somerset's execution in 1549 it reverted to
the Crown. Mary gave the residence back to her Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal
Reginald Pole, but with their deaths in 1558 the house reverted to the Crown. In the early 1560s,
Elizabeth I gave Knole to
Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, but he returned it in 1566. However, he had already granted a lease (1 February 1566) to one Thomas Rolf. Under this the '
manor and mansion-house' of Knole and the park, with the deer, and also Panthurst Park and other lands, were demised to the latter for the term of ninety-nine years at a rent of £200. The landlord was to do all repairs, and reserved the very unusual right (to himself and his heirs and assigns) to occupy the mansion-house as often as he or they chose to do so, but this right did not extend to the gate-house, nor to certain other premises. The tenant was given power to alter or rebuild the mansion-house at his pleasure. Meanwhile, Elizabeth had possibly granted the estate to her cousin
Thomas Sackville who, at that time, had the title of
Lord Buckhurst. There was competition at that time for the Knole estate. Rolf died very soon after, and the residue of the lease was bought by a wealthy local lawyer, John Lennard (of
Chevening). He had gradually built up a network of properties around Sevenoaks, including the manor of Chevening, and adjoining property in the parishes of Knockholt and Halstead, all just to the north of Sevenoaks. Lennard had already pressurised Rolf to sell the lease before his sudden death but, at the same point, Lord Buckhurst was also competing for the lease. Knole was a significant addition to Lennard's local land-holdings when it was confirmed, around 1570. However, Buckhurst was still able to insist upon some rights on the estate, including the ownership of at least some of the deer in the park. John moved to Knole, but gave his son Sampson,
Lord Dacre's son-in-law, a sub-lease. The Knole estate was worth a great deal to Sampson, bringing him in 1599 rents worth £218, 6s and 8d. One of Sampson Lennard's daughters, Margaret, married Sir Thomas Waller, at one time lieutenant of
Dover Castle and the younger son of an important Kent family, with their seat at
Groombridge. An unusual term in the marriage covenant stipulated that Margaret and Thomas should live at Knole which is where Margaret gave birth to her son William, probably in 1598. The baptism is recorded in the Sevenoaks parish register for 3 December. In 1613, William inherited his father's baronetcy, becoming Sir
William Waller. He later commanded a
parliamentary army with some distinction during the
English Civil War.
Early-Stuart Knole and the Sackvilles Since Dudley had originally granted a 99-year lease,
Thomas Sackville could only take it back by buying out the remaining 51 years of the lease for £4,000, which he did in 1603. Lennard was happy to sell, not only because of his mounting debts but also because he wished to gain the
Dacre title, which he did in 1604 from a commission headed by the
Lord Treasurer, Thomas Sackville. This is unlikely to have been a coincidence. Sackville's descendants, the
Earls and Dukes of Dorset and
Barons Sackville, have owned or lived in the property ever since. Thomas Sackville, at that time Lord Buckhurst, had considered a number of other sites to build a house commensurate with his elevated status in court and government. However, he could not overlook the multiple advantages of Knole: a good supply of spring water (rare for a house on a hill), plentiful timber, a deer park and close enough proximity to London. He immediately began a large building programme. This was supposed to have been completed within two years, employing some 200 workmen, but the partially-surviving accounts show that there was continuing, vast expenditure even in 1608–1609. Unlike any surviving English great house apart from
Haddon Hall, Knole today still looks as it did when Thomas died, having managed "to remain motionless like this since the early 17th century, balanced between growth and decay." Thomas's son,
Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset, took over the titles and estates, gave a description of his father's work on re-modelling Knole: "late re-edified wth a barne, stable, dovehouse and other edifices, together wth divers Courts, the gardens orchards and wilderness invironed wth a stone wall, well planted wth choise frute, and beawtified wth ponds, and manie other pleasureable delights and devises are situate wthin the Parke of knoll, the charge of new building of the said house and making planting and furnishing of the said ponds yards gardens orchards and wilderness about Seaven yeares past Thirty thosand pounds at the least yet exstant uppon Accounpts. All wch are now in the Earle of dorsetts owne occupacon and are worth to bee sold." The 2nd earl did not enjoy Knole for long, since he died in January 1609. His two sons, in turn, inherited the title and estates, first
Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset (1589–1624) and then the much more politically significant
Edward Sackville, 4th Earl of Dorset (1590–1652). None of these earls lived permanently at Knole. In the first earl's case, this was no doubt due to the renovations. The third earl lived mostly at court, though he is known to have kept his hunting horses and hounds there. The wife of the 3rd Earl,
Lady Anne Clifford, lived at Knole for a time during the couple's conflict over her inheritance from her father,
George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. A catalogue of the household of the Earl and Countess of Dorset at Knole from this time survives. It records the names and roles of servants and indicates where they sat at dinner. The list includes two African servants, Grace Robinson, a maid in the laundry, and John Morockoe, who worked in the kitchen. Both are described as "Blackamoors". In 1623, a large part of Knole House burnt down.
Knole during the Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration , in a miniature by
John Hoskins, 1635 Edward, a relatively moderate royalist, was away from Knole in the summer of 1642, when he and his cousin and factotum Sir John Sackville fell under suspicion of stockpiling arms and preparing local men to fight for
Charles I during the Civil War. The rumours of the cache of arms reached Parliament in an intercepted letter for which Sir John was notionally the source. On Sunday 14 August 1642, Parliament sent three troops of horse under Colonel Edwin Sandys, a member of a Kentish puritan family, to seize these arms from Knole. Sir John was in the congregation for the parish Sunday service and Sandys waited with his troops outside the church until it had finished. Local people tried to rescue him but they quickly judged that the troops were too strong for them, and Sir John was arrested and taken to the
Fleet prison. Sandys's troops then moved to Knole where, according to the earl of Dorset's steward, they caused damage to the value of £186, and 'The Armes they have wholie taken awaie there being five wagenloads of them (
sic passim).' In fact, the arms were largely of more interest to antiquarians than to soldiers; they included, for example, thirteen 'old French whereof four have locks [and] the other nine have none'. Sandys claimed that he had seized ' armes for 500 or 600 men', but this is untrue. Nevertheless, the House of Lords resolved that 'such [arms] as are fit to be made use of for the Service of the Kingdom are to be employed'. In addition, the House was sequestrated. Edward accepted the seizures and damage to Knole as an inevitable part of the Civil War, as he explained in a speech to Charles I and his peers in Oxford, in 1642: 'For my particular, in these wars I have suffered as much as any, my Houses have been searcht, my Armes taken thence, and my sonne and heire committed to prison; yet I shall wave these discourtesies, because I know there was a necessity they should be so.' 's
Britannia Illustrata (1709) Parliament established County Committees to govern the counties under its control. For the first 12 to 18 months of its operation, the Kent Committee was based at Knole, until its obvious disadvantage, being at one end of a very large county, led to its removal first to Aylesford and then to Maidstone. Apart from the committee, the county treasury was based here, along with a bodyguard of between 75 and 150 men and the so-called 'Household'. To provision its varied occupants, the Committee not only used the Knole estate but also rented fields from local landowners, including, surprisingly, Lady Sackville (Sir John's wife). Some accounts for the period survive. They show, for example, a gift of a few pounds to goodman Skinner for 'looking to Knole Parkgate.' Other expenditure was seen as much more extravagant, including £3091 for the Household, called the 'seraglio' by local enemies. Committee meetings were held in the room now known as Poets' Parlour where, in addition to using the existing furnishings, £153 was spent on sheets, table linen and carpets and £22 on silverware, candlesticks, glasses, jugs and drinking horns. Additional beds were also brought from Kippington,
Thomas Farnaby's sequestered house from the other side of Sevenoaks. One indication of the religious issues involved in the War is shown from the expenditure of £1 17s 4d for the 'carpenters and others employed in taking away the rails and levelling the ground in the chapel at Knole'. Nevertheless, the committee had moved to
Aylesford Priory before April 1645. When Edward Sackville died in 1652, his son Richard inherited not only the earldom, but estates in substantial debt, not least owing to fines imposed by Parliament for his father's role in the Civil War. He practised quiet retrenchment, despite taking part in some public work following the
Restoration of Charles II, including membership of the commission for the trial of the
regicides. However, his marriage to Lady Frances Cranfield, daughter of
Lionel Cranfield, was important for Knole. When her brother died, she inherited the Middlesex estates, including
Copt Hall in Essex. Richard died at Knole on 27 August 1677. but his son,
Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset (1643–1706), sold Copt Hall in 1701. Many of the contents were then moved to Knole, substantially enriching the collection. These include the copies by
Daniel Mytens of the
Raphael Cartoons and many portraits and pieces of furniture. Along with
John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset (1745–1799), Charles can now be seen as one of the two principal collectors responsible for the remarkable holdings of Knole House. Charles was an important figure in the late Stuart court;
Vita Sackville-West calls him 'one of the most jovial and debonair figures in the Knole portrait-gallery.' He was a poet and patron who became Charles II's
lord chamberlain and 'unofficial minister of the arts', with the 'poets' parlour' in Knole becoming a venue for literary society to converse. After 1688,
John Dryden ceased to be
poet laureate, owing to his catholic views which meant he refused the oath of allegiance to
William and
Mary. Charles stood by him with generous gifts of money, despite Dryden's bitterness about his treatment at court. On one occasion, dining at Knole, Dryden found a hundred-pound note under his plate. Not only Dryden but several other poets of the age appear to have been guests at Knole. The so-called 'Poet's Parlour' is today part of the private Sackville-West family apartments at Knole.
Knole since 1700 Lionel Sackville was a key supporter of the
Hanoverian Succession and was rewarded by
George I with the
Order of the Garter in 1714 and the
dukedom of Dorset in 1720. In 1730, Sir
Robert Walpole appointed him
lord lieutenant of Ireland. Much later, in 1757, he was attacked in Knole Park by a mob protesting against the
Militia Bill. However, he was saved by the arrival of a small cavalry force and died peacefully in Knole House in 1765. His wife,
Elizabeth, had been a maid of honour to Queen
Anne. Her great friend,
Lady Elizabeth Germain, lived at Knole for such a long time that her bedroom, sitting room and china closet are, to this day, named after her. Lionel's son,
Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset, only survived his father by four years, but his grandson
John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset was a much more significant character for Knole. An avid collector with the means to satisfy his acquisitiveness, he not only brought back various old masters from his
Grand Tour in 1770, but also became a discerning patron for contemporary artists. Sir
Joshua Reynolds painted a full-length portrait and the Duke also acquired several other paintings by Reynolds, eleven of which are still on display in the Reynolds Room. John Frederick's only son,
George Sackville, 4th Duke of Dorset, died in 1815 aged 21, and Knole was then left by the third Duke's widow in 1825 to their daughter
Mary, Countess of Plymouth. She died childless in 1864, leaving it to her sister
Elizabeth Sackville-West, Countess De La Warr and her heirs male. It ultimately passed to the latter's fourth son,
Mortimer Sackville-West, 1st Baron Sackville, and thence to his successors. However, Lord Sackville's resources were insufficient to maintain the house and its possessions. He began selling a number of the heirlooms to enable him to keep the estate going. , in 1926 The Sackville-West descendants included writer
Vita Sackville-West. Her
Knole and the Sackvilles, published 1922, is regarded as a classic in the literature of English country houses. Its rather romantic style is sometimes of dubious historical accuracy but it is based upon full access to the manuscripts and books at that time in the House's collection, though many are now in the Kent County Archives (originally at the
Centre for Kentish Studies; hence CKS in some catalogue records, and now at the
Kent History and Library Centre) in Maidstone. It was soon after this book's publication, in December 1922, that Vita first met
Virginia Woolf who, became a friend and, for a while in the later 1920s, her lover. Woolf wrote
Orlando over the winter of 1927–1928, an experimental, though accessible, novel which drew on the history of the house and Sackville-West's ancestors, particularly as presented in Vita's book. The Sackville family custom of following the
Salic rules of primogeniture was to prevent Vita from inheriting Knole upon the death of her father
Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville (1867–1928). As she was not philoprogenitive, this was as well, but the thought hung heavily on her at this time. Woolf gave her a fantastical version of Knole and, when Vita had read it, she wrote to Virginia, 'You made me cry with your passages about Knole, you wretch.' This sentiment may be heightened by the uses of Vita as a historical model for some of the photos in the original Hogarth edition. Three of these are, in fact, adapted from pictures at Knole: 'Orlando as a boy' from the young
Edward Sackville in the double portrait; 'Archduchess Harriet' from a picture of Mary, fourth countess of Somerset in Lord Sackville's private collection and 'Orlando as Ambassador' from a portrait of Lionel Sackville, the first duke of Dorset by
Rosalba Carriera. On her father's death in 1928, the house and estate went to Lionel's younger brother, Charles (1870–1962). It is perhaps fairer to see it as a work of consolation to Vita, though it is one that also contains a number of barbed comments about
Knole and the Sackvilles, with its altered versions of letters and lists:
Already – it is an effect lists have upon us – we are beginning to yawn. But if we stop, it is only that the catalogue is tedious, not that it is finished. There are ninety-nine pages more of it ... . And so on and so on. ==Art and architecture==