No difficulty is experienced in obtaining admission to Knole House, providing one pays the price.  The thousands of tourists who come annually are handled in a most businesslike manner.  An admission fee of two shillings, or about fifty cents, is charged, and at numerous stands near the gateway photographs, post cards, souvenirs and guide-books galore are sold.  Motor cars are allowed to drive right up to the great gateway, where they are assigned a position and supervised by an attendant, all for the sum of one shilling.  However, the show is well worth the price, and the owner of the palace is entitled to no small credit for making it so readily accessible.

The house is a fine example of the baronial residences erected just after the period of fortified castles, when artillery had rendered these fortress-mansions useless as a means of defense.  It surrounds three square courts and covers about five acres; it contains three hundred and sixty-five rooms and has seven great staircases, some of them very elaborate.  The collection of paintings and mediaeval furniture is one of the best in England.  The pictures are of untold value, one room being filled with originals by Gainsborough and Reynolds alone.  Some idea of the value of these pictures may be gained from the fact that an offer of twenty thousand pounds for one of the Gainsboroughs was refused; and there are other pictures quite as valuable, not only by English masters, but by great continental artists as well.

King James I visited Knole House and preparations were made to receive him as befitted his rank.  The immense stateroom was especially furnished for the occasion at a cost, it is said, of about one hundred thousand pounds.  This room has never been used since and it stands today just as it did when it served its royal occupant, though the gorgeous hangings and tapestries are somewhat dingy and worn from the dust and decay of three hundred years.

It took nearly two hours to go through the parts of the house that are shown, although the parties were accompanied by guides who kept them moving along.  On the afternoon of our arrival there were quite a number of visitors, five motor cars and several carriages bringing them.  Knole House stands in a large park, which has the finest beeches in England, and it is really more of a show-place than a family residence.  The Sackville-Wests are among the richest of the nobility and have other homes which are probably more comfortable than this impressive but unhomelike palace.

[Illustration:  Penshurst place, home of the Sidneys.]