Annotation:Knole Park (1)
X:1 T:Knole Park [1] M:4/4 L:1/8 R:Country Dance Tune Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:D A3B A3F|A2d2f2d2|B2 ef g2e2|d2c2B2A2| A3B A3F|A2d2f2d2|B3g e2c2|d2A2 D4:| |:a2f2 A2af|g2e2A2g2|g2f2e2d2|c2B2A2G2| B2g2A2f2|G2e2F2d2|E2g2 fedc|d2A2 D4:|]
KNOLE PARK [1]. AKA - "Knowle Park," "Miss Boyn or Knole Park." English, Country Dance Tune (4/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This country dance tune first appears in Henry Bishop’s Six New Minuets and Twelve Country Dances (London, 1788). The name Knole, a place-name in Kent, is an Anglo-Saxon one, meaning knoll or hillock, while the estate of Knole Park was the home of the Dukes of Dorset. Knole is said to be the largest private house in England and is set in a deer park, enclosed in 1406. Knole Park [1] is one of the few Tudor deer parks in England to have survived, and the only one in Kent.
Researcher Paul Cooper finds reference to the tune in the Morning Post newspaper (1/4/1808) where it is given that it was "composed by Mons. Laborie" and "complimentary to the House of Dorset", and suggests that it may have been created specifically for Arabella Sackville, Dowager Duchess of Dorset (1767-1825). Cooper finds the earliest appearance of the tune in Skillern & Challoner's 4th Number (c. 1807, under the name "Miss Boyn or Knole Park"), and subsequently in a number of country dance publications through the end of the first decade of the 19th century. However, by the middle of the next decade it dropped from published circulation. The tune can also be found in Philadelphia publisher George Willig's small (four page) collection Willig's Collection of Popular Country Dances, No. 1 (1812).
