Knole Park

Address – Sevenoaks Kent TN15 0RP Phone 01732 462100 Opening times 21 Mar–24 Oct  11–4   Wednesdays only Collection/special features Mainly related to the house, the grounds being landscaped for deer. Dog friendly? No Child friendly? It’s only a personal impression but I would say, not really.  The scale of the house and gardens is grand rather than interesting and not being able to feed the deer takes a lot of pleasure out of the visit Description Knole Park is one of the few Tudor deer parks in England to have survived the many styles of landscape gardening since it was created. The park has changed little since Thomas Sackville's death in 1608, although the devastation of the Great Storm in 1987 removed 70% of the trees in the park.  The house (which is often called a castle) was so beloved of Henry VIII that he made the archbishop who owned it, hand it over as a gift!  Later the house belonged to the Sackville family, Vita Sackville West was born there. The 1000 acre parkland that surrounds Knole Castle is home to an eight hundred strong herd of Fallow and Japanese Sika deer who must not be fed as they have become both disruptive and aggressive through former hand feeding. There is a 24 acre walled garden consisting of both formal and informal (wilderness areas), which provides views of the seldom seen rear aspects of the house, but this is rarely open and you need to telephone to find out when it can be accessed.

Knole photograph by Rictor Norton and David, used under a creative commons licence