Vita Sackville-West was born at the ancestral estate of Knole in Kent, England, on 9 March 1892.
Victoria Mary Sackville-West was born on 9 March 1892 at Knole House, the vast ancestral estate of the Sackville family in Kent, England. She was the only child of Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville, and his cousin Victoria Sackville-West.
Knole, one of the largest houses in England with reputedly 365 rooms, profoundly shaped Vita's imagination and sense of loss, since as a woman she was legally barred from inheriting the estate under primogeniture rules that favored the nearest male heir. This early, formative injustice would echo throughout her writing, most notably in her semi-autobiographical novel The Edwardians and in Virginia Woolf's novel Orlando, which was inspired by Vita's relationship to Knole.
Her aristocratic upbringing gave her access to extraordinary privilege, education by governesses and tutors, and immersion in art, history, and literature, but also instilled in her a lifelong preoccupation with inheritance, gender, and identity. The house and its grounds later informed her celebrated gardening work, most famously at Sissinghurst Castle.