Win a Christmas dinner at Knole House in Sevenoaks

Don't miss your chance to win a private Christmas feast in the stately surroundings of the Great Hall in Knole House Sevenoaks simply by helping the National Trust decide on future plans for the historic property.

Members of the public are being asked to complete a short online survey, to help guide Knole's thinking before it can launch a renovation project that aims to preserve the house's fragile fabric and collections, and share its rich history with more visitors.

Those taking part in the survey will be entered into a prize draw. The lucky winner will get a Christmas lunch and can invite up to nine friends and family members to join them in Knole's Great Hall, in front of a huge log fire, serenaded by musicians. The lunch will take place on 3 or 10 December, according to the winner's choice.

Emma Slocombe, lead project manager, said: "When planning for the renovation work we realised there may also be many new opportunities available to us, such as opening new spaces and creating new experiences for visitors. We are asking the public to help us decide how they would like our plans to develop."

She added: "This really is a unique prize. We have only held three formal National Trust dinners here in the last 65 years."

The National Trust acquired Knole in 1946. It opens the state apartments, Great Hall, courtyards, the visitor centre, Orangery, a shop and tearoom to visitors, and owns about a 10th of the parkland. The rest of the property, owned by the National Trust, is leased back to the Sackville-West family.

For your chance to dine like a lord, in a place where lords have entertained for five centuries, click here or visit http://tiny.cc/knolexmas and take part in the survey.

Background History

Knole House, situated in Knole Park, Sevenoaks, is one of England's most important and complete historic properties, which needs work to ensure the survival of both the property and its irreplaceable collections of furniture, paintings and textiles.

Built on the site of a medieval manor house, Knole took shape from 1456 under Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury. The palace, set in 1,000 acres of deer park, was extended by subsequent archbishops until Henry VIII, who liked its airy site, high on a knoll, and so forced Archbishop Cranmer to hand it to him.

Thomas Sackville, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, gained full possession in 1604, and began remodelling Knole into a showhouse for the wealth of the Sackvilles. For 400 years the family, which still lives in the house, amassed furniture from the royal palaces, paintings, textiles and other objects from around the world. The house covers four acres, and is one of England's largest private houses. The famous showrooms, and the parkland with hundreds of fallow and Sika deer, have attracted visitors for centuries. Knole was the birthplace of author Vita Sackville-West, whose lover Virginia Woolf wrote Orlando, a fictional biography of Knole and its owners through the centuries.

The Great Hall

The hall, with its remarkable, carved oak screen, 17th-century plasterwork ceiling, minstrels gallery and family portraits, has been used for entertaining since the 15th century. In the time of the archbishops of Canterbury, Knole's medieval owners, all members of the household ate together.

This custom changed during the 17th century until members of the Sackville family would have eaten upstairs in private, with lower ranking servants eating in the hall. However, the Sackvilles have for centuries used the hall for important public dinners.

Inspired by Knole

This is the name of the project to save Knole's fragile fabric, to conserve its irreplaceable collections, and open new spaces to the public. The project is still in the development phase – the consultation exercise above is one of its first actions but the National Trust plans to launch a public fundraising appeal in January next year to begin the process of repairing the house.

For more photos of Knole go to the Sevenoaks People photo gallery or click here.