Knole Doubt About It

First off, I apologize for the title. Next, I want to tell you about my adventure to Sevenoaks and the Knole House that's been there since the 15th century.

We were supposed to go to Bath, but it turns out that it gets mighty expensive for a ticket on the weekends, and not all of the group was willing to pay the heightened rate. So we went to Sevenoaks instead, which was much cheaper but still a fun trip. It's about 40 minutes out of London by train. We went because the town includes a huge house called Knole, surrounded by a 40 acre deer park. The house has enough history to fill a textbook, but it was a royal residence for a while, it has been passed through all kinds of nobility, and it's still the residence of some nobles today. I thought the most interesting thing about the house was the room and bed where James II awoke to learn William of Orange had arrived with an army. There were huge galleries of portraits of almost every notable English historical figure for 400 years, and countless furniture sets from various eras. All in all, it was a very beautiful old house, and I have many pictures of the outside, but none on the inside (prohibited). Anyway, to the pictures.

Here is the town from the British Rail station.

Just a little path leading off to a neighbourhood along the way to Knole. There were several little spots like this.

This was the graveyard of the church's parish. I'm not sure if you're supposed to take pictures of gravestones, but I'm pretty sure they're there to be remembered, so what does it hurt?

The parish itself. The gravestones dated back to the late 18th century, so I suppose that's how old it is.

The gatehouse to the Knole estate. It was pretty busy with tourists; I try to keep them out of the pictures to varying degrees of success.

There will be several pictures of the grounds of the deer park. I won't caption them, I'll just let them speak for themselves. By the way, it may look sunny but it was cold and windy too. Not that I minded, of course.

And of course the deer were plenty as well. This was a herd (is that what a group of deer is called?) with one male who kept making a noise somewhere between a burp and croak. It was either to warn us to stay away or to call more of his herd to him. They were very pretty.

One of them was ignoring the call, however, so I got a better look.

Here's the house from the front lawn. Very autumn-y.

I try to give as many angles as possible in the next few pictures.

This was in the inner courtyard. There was some construction (a common theme everywhere I go, it seems) but not too much.

More of the first courtyard. I couldn't get a better view on the statue since we weren't allowed on the grass.

Last before we went in the house. You would know it was a deer park even without the dear, eh?

And we were outside again, where it had gotten cloudier. This is the first courtyard from the other end.

There was a tearoom around the back (we didn't eat there, choosing a cheaper and more substantial Italian restaurant in town), and up a slope from the back you could get a better picture of the sheer size of the place. It has something like a staircase for every day of the week, and a...bedroom for every week of the year, or something like that.

Some deer accosted us on the way out to thank us ever so much for stopping by.

And that is that. Lunch/dinner in town and back in London that evening. It was a very fun trip. The walk through the park was fun too, and I've decided to search out another place like it next weekend for a hike. I'll need the study break for finals, I'm sure. I did quite well on my midterms, if I may partake in some shameless self-promotion, so I'm optimistic about the finals. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the pictures, I will have more from a mystery location next week!