A rare peek into Knole House’s living spaces has been given by the 7th Baron Sackville’s daughter. This is the Kent Archbishop’s 567-year old palace that Henry VIII used to hunt on his hunting grounds.
Edie West (18 years old) shared a TikTok video showing her family eating at a long dining table that was covered with portraits.
The student, who studies at Vanderbilt University in the US, is the daughter Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville, the guardian of Knole house and his wife Margot MacAndrew.
Edie film herself sitting at the end of a large dining room table, before panning on her entire family in a video that has been seen more than 2 million times.
They were casually dressed in jeans and jumpers. In a parody of Succession, she jokes that they are pretending the whole family has gathered to talk about who’s next.
You will find dozens upon dozens oil portraits depicting former houseoccupants, such as Henry VII.
Knole, now part of the National Trust, has half its rooms available for lease to the Sackvilles. It was constructed in the 1400s out of an older manor home, owned at the time by the Archbishops.
This house is situated on 1000 acres of parkland and boasts 365 rooms, 52 stairs, 12 entrances, and seven courtyards.
It was the home of Henry VII, the Tudor dynasty’s hunter. Knole, after his divorce from Catherine, sheltered Mary I and Elizabeth I.
In 1603, Thomas Sackville – a member of the prominent Sackville family – made it the aristocratic treasure house, creating showrooms designed to impress visitors and to display the Sackville family’s wealth and status.
The Sackville Family still resides there after over 400 years of continuous occupancy.
Perhaps the most famous former resident is Vita Sackville-West, the prolific diarist and author and inspiration for her lover Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A Biography.
Edie Sackville-West, 18, shared a video of her family to TikTok , showing them eating at an extended dining table covered in portraits.
Born at Knole in 1892, she grew up there, an only child of Victoria and Lionel, 3rd Baron Sackville.
But she never inherited it due to male-favoured primogeniture laws meaning the home instead went to her uncle Charles. It was during his term that the house was handed to the National Trust with an endowment.
In 1913, Vita married Harold Nicolson, an MP. although they were both said to be gay and have numerous affairs.
Vita, who is best known for writing The Edwardians – a reflection of her own childhood experience – had two bridesmaids, one of whom she was having an affair with at the time. The other, her new husband’s sister, she would have a long affair with 15 years later.
In later years, she became well-known as a horticulturalist, creating beautiful gardens at Sissinghurst, her final home in Kent, which are visited to this day by a respectful and admiring public.
Her other lovers included Rosamund Grosvenor, a relative of the Duke of Westminster, who often stayed in the room next to Vita’s at Knole, where — in Vita’s words — they lived ‘on terms of the greatest possible intimacy’.
In a clip that’s been viewed more than two million times, Edie films herself at the end of a grand dining table before panning on all her family. All dressed casually in jeans and jumpers, in a scene parodying hit TV show Succession, she jokes: ‘pretending the whole family is gathered to discuss whose portrait will be added next’.
Around the table is dozens of oil portraits of former occupants of the house – including Henry VII
Although she later denied they made love, she admitted that she was so overwhelmingly in love with Rosamund that ‘passion . . . used to make my head swim sometimes’.
Far more dangerous, however, was Vita’s schoolfriend Violet. Already touched by scandal — she was the daughter of Alice Keppel, the mistress of Edward VII — she nursed such a burning passion for Vita that she begged her never to marry.
But most famously, it was over dinner with a mutual acquaintance in December 1922 that Vita met the woman with whom her name would be inextricably linked in literary history: Virginia Woolf.
Of the two of them, Vita was the better-known and more commercially successful author, but it was 40-year-old Virginia — proprietor with her husband Leonard of the Hogarth Press — who had the reputation for cleverness.
Vita Sackville West, a prolific writer and diarist who inspired Virginia Woolf to write Orlando: A Biography is perhaps the most well-known former resident.
It was December 1925 when Virginia was visiting Vita in Long Barn. Vita wrote a subsequent letter referring to “the explosion that took place on the couch in my bedroom here, when you behaved so dishonestly and gained me forever”.
Virginia described it like ‘The night you were captured, that winter, in Long Barn’.
Vita knew that Vita could be at great risk if she had a massive sexual awakening. Harold was told by Vita the next year that she had been to bed twice with her, but that was it. . . Because of this madness, I’m afraid to provoke physical emotions.
Harold complimented her control: “It’s more than playing with fire, it’s also playing with gelignite,” he stated.
Edie often shares photos with her siblings of their home including the dining area (left) or outdoor stairs (rights).
Virginia’s acclaimed novel Orlando, which features a hero who keeps changing sex, was clearly based on her Vita — indeed, Vita’s son Nigel later described it as an extended love letter to his mother. Virginia was also able to have at least part of the sexually intriguing friend she had, even if it was only in writing.
Although the current owners of Knole are more secretive, Robert Bertrand Sackville West, 63 has written about him and his family.
On the death of his uncle in March 2004, he inherited the title. The family lives in the south wing.
Kent Life, 2011. He explained that his parents had moved to the North Wing when he was nine years old. So from then on, until my time at university, Knole was always home.
“One of the benefits of having my childhood in another section of the house was the fact that there were no attachments to particular rooms. It allowed me to freely do what I wanted within the limitations of my ownership.
“We’ve been reviewing how to work closer together, and especially how to make more space. Although the show rooms are magnificent and important, they only give an incomplete view of Knole Of in its most glory, which was the first half of 17th century.
He often shares snaps with his kids of the house, including its grand swimming pool and amazing views.