I read that Knole has 365 rooms, 52 staircases and 7 court yards and is called the calendar house because of it.

How many of those rooms does the visitor get to see?

Knole is currently under renovation so I assume certain areas are closed off for the next few years while they restore the property. Therefore, how much is available to the visitor and how much time is needed to see it?

The National Trust has this schedule posted that appears to indicate a rolling sequence of work that allows for visitors to continue to visit while the facilities are improved and new rooms opened over the 5-6 years of the project:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/document-1355796114836/
Project blog: http://inspiredbyknole.wordpress.com/
House site: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knole/

I am wondering how many rooms the visitor gets to see. I doubt they let you visit the majority of the complex.

Out of the 365 rooms--do you see 10 rooms? Or more?

"Just under 20 rooms and courtyards are open to the public. These include the magnificent great hall, the heart of the medieval house, and Knole's three long galleries leading to their state bedrooms and attendant dressing rooms."

From the site above: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1355779188222/

As in almost all stately homes - a tiny fraction of the building is open to the public. Mostly the "State Rooms' and a few others.

Knole was really the first major property after WW2 to move under National Trust control, at a time when it was feared such houses and estates would wither away (that's the basic assumption that got Waugh to write Brideshead: he thought he was writing such houses' epitaph), and the NT was still grappling with how to conserve them.

NT senior management openly admit they'd never accept a property these days on the terms agreed with the family in 1946. The Sackville-Wests retain possession of the Park and most of the artefacts in the house: they also lease back most of the 365 rooms for their private use. It's claimed that there are more members of the family now living in Knole than at any time since the first Sackville acquired it in the 1570s.

Many NT houses are still inhabited by the family, who usually live in adequate comfort in a suite that doesn't intrude on the grand public rooms, but accounts for a trivial proportion of the house. Knole is exceptional in being so dominated by rooms that are inaccessible to the public even when there's no refurbishing going on.

Thanks for the info.

So the Sackville-Wests were pretty clever arranging those terms for themselves and their future generations.

Is this property definitely worth visiting as compared to some other National Trust Properties--nearby Ightham Mote, Scotney Castle or not nearby Petworth? I understand each have their own charm, architecture, and historical relevance but the overseas visitor usually doesn't have time to see them all and must pick and choose.

"So the Sackville-Wests were pretty clever "

Or the NT were pretty naive, or there was a toffs' conspiracy to defraud naive donors and subsidise toffs' chums way of life, or....

A large proportion of Britain's historic grand houses have been connected with one family for much of their lives (a large proportion haven't, as well. All but three in my county have changed ownership on average every 3 generations). There's a serious argument (admittedly most often made by the owners) that retaining a family connection is as culturally important as keeping the Gibbons carvings or the Lely portraits.

James Lees-Milne's experiment in what we'd now call a public-private partnership, (only with the government "merely" contributing a gargantuan tax break that toff propaganda has never properly acknowledged) was almost unprecedented, and like all PPIs, the real devil is in the detail. As we've seen over the past two decades in all the other PPIs, the parties only properly appreciate which details matter decades later.

It took till about the 1980s before the NT really grasped what a whopping gift of donors' money (and taxpayer bounty) it was handing over to the already filthy rich, and that there were other ways of conserving most of our architecture that matters.

The answer to the "which to pick and choose" is: stick a pin. You've got no way of assessing strangers' recommendations, and you'll never see more than a few percent of any proper country's heritage. Personally, I've never understood why anyone wants to divert time gawping at variants of Downton film sets they could be spending walking the footpaths, eating cheap Vietnamese food, going to fringe theatres, looking at our industrial revolution remains, going round our medieval churches (infinitely more important than a few people's domestic bling) or listening to our spectacular smorgasbord of live music.

<<I've never understood why anyone wants to divert time gawping at variants of Downton film sets they could be spending... looking at our industrial revolution remains>>

Aren't they just as much a part of our heritage? The feudal and class system made us who we are, with all our prejudices and idiosyncrasies.

"time.... they could be spending walking the footpaths, eating cheap Vietnamese food, going to fringe theatres, looking at our industrial revolution remains, going round our medieval churches (infinitely more important than a few people's domestic bling) or listening to our spectacular smorgasbord of live music".

We want to do all of the above including gawping at the castles, palaces, mansions and stately homes.

Our "historical houses"--Washington's many headquarters, the Vanderbilts' mansions, Roosevelts' house, Rockefellar's estate, San Simeon only date back so far. I find it amazing to look and walk into a house that was built in the 1500's or earlier and is still in good enough condition for people to visit in today's age.

flanneruk goes all Bolshie on us!

I never thought I would live to see the day!