KNOLE HOUSE AND PARK

On a beautiful Sunday morning we decided to visit Knole Park again .We have been there many times before with our children but we have never attempted a long walk around the park. If you are just visiting the house and don't mind a short walk which involves a steep hill ,then there is free car park on Sundays at the leisure centre near the town centre in Sevenoaks . We started walking in the direction of the house with the intention of bypassing it as we have visited the magnificent house Knole twice now. Admired by Henry VIII he forced Thomas Cranmer his Archbishop of Canterbury to hand it to him in 1538 . To me the house has its moments but reminds me more of a terraced medieval village than a house (its not really a house anyway). The house looks very impressive as you approach it over the grassy knoll (sounds as though I'm describing Kennedy's assassination) and as we wanted to avoid the crowds we veered right
just before the house and after walking several hundred yards we found ourselves more or less on our own apart from the not so wild deer which just add to the beauty of the park(they were losing their winter coats so didn't look at there best). We kept walking until we were close to the edge of the park and followed paths around the perimeter . The surrounding countryside is magnificent with its rolling hills, and as most of Knole is over 500ft and 1000 acres in size, be prepared for some minor hill walking. The walk took about 5 hours and we covered well over 7 miles ,and I dare say we cheated a bit cutting corners, a well earned beer in the town centre made this lovely walk all the more worthwhile.