Knole, Sevenoaks, Kent: the Great Staircase

NOTES: The house was built by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, between 1456 and 1486. It passed into Royal possession in 1537 during the Dissolution. In 1566, Elizabeth I presented the house and estate to her cousin Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, who substantially remodelled the medieval palace between 1603 and 1608. Richard Dungan, the King's Plasterer, was responsible for the patterned ceiling and Paul Isaacson, the Master Painter, for the strap-work and trompe-l'oeil adorning this Jacobean addition.