KNOLE - A Complex Beautiful House and Garden

The week before last we paid our second visit to Knole House. This is a nice day trip as it is only 50 minutes from home. Within it's glorious deer park setting, Knole reveals itself as a complex and beautiful house, which appears like a small village when viewed from a distance. An archbishop's palace, a royal house and from 1603 to the present day, the Sackville family home, Knole has remained largely unchanged for 300 years and is certainly one of the most intgriguing houses in England.

Thirteen superb state rooms laid out as much as they were in the 17th century to impress visitors by the wealth and standing of the Sackville family. The house boasts many famous paintings and tapestries. The house inspired Vita Sackville-West, who was born at Knole, to write her best selling novel 'The Edwardians' and was also the setting for Virginia Woolf's famous novel 'Orlando'.

Knole is set at the heart of the only remaining medieval deer park in Kent where Sika and Fallow deer roam freely amongst ancient oak, beech and chesnut trees. Over
200,000 trees have been planted since the great storm of 1987 which destroyed 70% of these trees in the park - the abundance of decaying wood (see some of the photos) now provides a haven for wildlife.

Lord Sackville's private garden has been in existence for over 500 years and provides the most beautiful view of the house. The Wisteria is very old and well established creating the most wonderful display of scented blooms along the garden walls in May. We are planning to go back next May.

So if you come with me I'll take you round the inner courtyards, the outside of the house from various angles, and a little of the gardens and deer park, to see it in pictures for yourself.

The ice House

The tradesman's entrance

Please bear with me if I am not visiting your site so often

I am still working on many issues to bring my hard drive back to where it was before the rebuild

One of the issues with my computer now is that it will not scroll properly

making it not so easy to scroll through blogs

I am hoping this will be rectified when my graphics card drivers

are returned to their original form

My Garden Confessions and Contrasts

I'll start with confessions! This is the time of year when I become bored with my garden. The excitement of most of the new growth and colour of springtime and early summer has faded, things are generally 'going over', blossom pruning has left large gaps in places and it can start to look jaded. Just a matter of trimming and keeping tidy now until the many Autumn chores.

The weather has hotted up since we were shivering last Sunday at Pilgrims Hall and this week sees temperatures hitting 86f in the London area. Not a lengthy heatwave we are told though, it is set to deteriorate at the weekend. So for now lunch and dinner in the garden to make the most of it.

So having done with the confessions, let's take a walk around the garden and see what CONTRASTS we can find.

Contrasts in the Herb Garden

And not forgetting the pond

COMPUTER UPDATE

It is now rebuilt but not knowing this was going to be the action taken the company was not in the possession of my application discs so I had to take them in today

Also some problem with video and graphics card - another internet search!

I had just been thinking about getting my computer back and up and running

I had failed to register that I will have to reinstall the various software that I have added myself

So I am having great lessons in learning patience, something that I am not very good at