Sissinghurst Castle - Sissinghurst, Kent, UK
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ashberry
N 51° 06.942 E 000° 34.881
31U E 330717 N 5665473
Sissinghurst is an ancient site. A stone manor house surrounded by a moat was built here in the Middle Ages, but gradually fell into poor condition, part of the buildings were demolished and after 1930 an amazing garden was built here.
Waymark Code: WM150XM
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 09/24/2021
Views: 3
"Sissinghurst Castle
Sissinghurst is an ancient site. A stone manor house surrounded by a moat was built here in the Middle Ages. In the reign of Elizabeth I it was replaced by a splendid mansion built by the Baker family, who subsequently lost their fortune in the Civil War. Sissinghurst gradually fell into a ruinous state with the condition of the buildings so derelict that parts had to be demolished. Such were the conditions when Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson bought the estate in 1930. They embarked upon a project to restore the house and to design the now famous gardens which are laid out as a series of themed ‘outdoor rooms’. The most distinctive architectural feature of Sissinghurst is the 4-storey red-brick Elizabethan tower with capped octagonal turrets where Sackville-West kept her study and wrote her books.
The collection at Sissinghurst reflects the aesthetic and artistic tastes of the writers and gardeners Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) and Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) who were responsible for the reclamation of the ruin in the 1930s. It houses the couple's extensive working libraries, numbering nearly 11,000 books, making it the third largest library in the care of the National Trust. The books are mostly contemporary to Vita and Harold, reflecting their personal tastes. There are numerous twentieth-century first editions, annotated books and review copies. The collection also includes a varied and mixed collection of Italian, French and early English furniture, early Persian ceramics and glassware, and portraits."
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"Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent in England, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England's register of historic parks and gardens. It was bought by Sackville-West in 1930, and over the next thirty years, working with, and later succeeded by, a series of notable head gardeners, she and Nicolson transformed a farmstead of "squalor and slovenly disorder" into one of the world's most influential gardens. Following Sackville-West's death in 1962, the estate was donated to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. It is one of the Trust's most popular properties, with nearly 200,000 visitors in 2017. "
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