Written by Robert Sackville-West

Photographed by Ashley Hicks.

 

Sumptuous photographs by designer Ashley Hicks capture the smouldering spirit of Knole, from the staterooms, which house possibly the finest collection of royal Stuart furniture in the world, to the private apartments and gardens to the behind-the-scenes labyrinth of cellars and attics.
 
Knole provides a window into English history. The characters who populate the pages—the grave Elizabethan statesman, the good-for-nothing gadabout at the seedy court of James I, the dashing cavalier, the Restoration rake, the 3rd Duke of the ancien régime—are all representative of their eras (members of a family described by Vita Sackville-West as “a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent, and too melancholy”). Vita's own disinheritance from Knole prompted her dear friend Virginia Woolf to pen Orlando, furthering the place’s fame and glamorous lustre. 

 

Published by Rizzoli