Knole ()NT is a country house situated within Knole Park, a 1,000-acre (400-hectare) park located immediately to the south-east of Sevenoaks in west Kent. The house apparently ranks in the top five of England's largest houses, under any measure used, occupying a total of four acres. Vita Sackville-West, who grew up there, recounts a legend that it is a calendar house: 'its seven courtyards correspond to the days of the week, its fifty-two staircases to the weeks of the year, its three hundred and sixty-five rooms to the days of the year, but 'I do not know that anyone has ever troubled to verify it.' The meticulous planning of a calendar house certainly does not fit well with the organic growth and reconstruction of the house over more than 500 years.
