Victoria Sackville-West, Baroness Sackville

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Victoria Josefa Dolores Catalina Sackville-West, Baroness Sackville (1862–1936) was the wife of her cousin Lionel Edward Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville and the mother of writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West. The family lived mainly at Knole House, an estate that had been theirs for centuries. Victoria embodied this heritage.

[edit] Early life, daughter's notoriety

She was the illegitimate daughter of Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville and the Spanish dancer Josefa de la Oliva (née Durán y Ortega, known as Pepita). Her life is mostly overshadowed by the high-profile and controversial bisexual life of her daughter, Vita Sackville-West, who had an open marriage with diplomat Harold Nicolson and affairs with Violet Trefusis and Virginia Woolf.

[edit] Houses

She had Edwin Lutyens design a house for her at Roedean, another for her guests at Worthing, and yet another in London. Edwin Lutyens had ‘two ladies’, Gertrude Jekyll and Victoria, who were each ‘closer than friends’.[1]