Knole, the home of Vita's aristocratic ancestors in Kent, was given to Thomas Sackville by Queen Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century.
Vita was born there, the only child of cousins Victoria Sackville-West and Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville.
Vita's mother, raised in a Parisian convent, was the illegitimate daughter of Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville and a Spanish dancer, Josefa de Oliva (née Durán y Ortega), known as Pepita.
Pepita's mother was an acrobat who had married a barber.

Although the marriage of Vita's parents was initially happy, shortly after her birth, the couple drifted and Lionel took an opera singer for a mistress who came to live with them at Knole.

Christened Victoria Mary Sackville-West, the girl was known as "Vita" throughout her life to distinguish her from her mother, also called Victoria.
The usual English aristocratic inheritance customs were followed by the Sackville-West family, preventing Vita from inheriting Knole on the death of her father, a source of life-long bitterness to Vita.
The house followed the title, and was bequeathed instead by her father to his nephew Charles, who became the 4th Baron.
Knole, the home of Vita's aristocratic ancestors in Kent, was given to Thomas Sackville by Queen Elizabeth I in the sixteenth century. Vita was born there, the only child of cousins Victoria Sackville-West and Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville. Vita's mother, raised in a Parisian convent, was the illegitimate daughter of Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville and a Spanish dancer, Josefa de Oliva (née Durán y Ortega), known as Pepita. Pepita's mother was an acrobat who had married a barber.
Although the marriage of Vita's parents was initially happy, shortly after her birth, the couple drifted and Lionel took an opera singer for a mistress who came to live with them at Knole.
Christened Victoria Mary Sackville-West, the girl was known as "Vita" throughout her life to distinguish her from her mother, also called Victoria. The usual English aristocratic inheritance customs were followed by the Sackville-West family, preventing Vita from inheriting Knole on the death of her father, a source of life-long bitterness to Vita. The house followed the title, and was bequeathed instead by her father to his nephew Charles, who became the 4th Baron.
Vita Sackville-West