SISSINGHURST AND MORE

Almost a year to the day we stayed in the Kent countryside, at an airbnb, for a week of garden and National Trust visits.
We had visited Sissinghurst several time but never been to Knole, the childhood home of Vita Sackville West. That was out first stop on day 1.

Victoria May Sackville-West, known as Vita, heiress to 13 generations of the Sackville-Wests lived at Knole, which was at its height, one of the largest private house in England. But she did not inherit on her father's death because of an Elizabethan clause which said the house must pass to a male. Knole passed to her uncle. Vita was understandably upset and never went back there.

Knole 

We paid our first visit to Knole last summer although you would never have known it was summer by the gale force winds that blew us up to the entrance. Then it began to rain and I was thankful that we would soon be inside the warmth of the building. It is hard to imagine how cold and draughty it must have been in winter. Just like my childhood, with no central heating and only a fire in the main room. But we didn't know any better.
In the 1700 they installed a Buzaglo, coal-fired heater in the great hall. It was very expensive but the manufacturer claimed it would heat the whole room! They eventually moved it into the orangery where it remains today-restored but not functioning. I think they would have needed a crane to lift it. They eventually replaced the heater with a fireplace which must have been in the house originally.

I had paid and booked for a tour of the attics but we had to hang about waiting for everyone to show up-outside. Out of the rain and under cover but very cold. To say the tour was a disappointment was an understatement but I suppose it gave a realistic picture of some aspects of servant life at Knole. Most of the rooms held the discarded trappings of 19 century life, piled rather haphazardly in a warren of small rooms. The elderly guides could not find the key to the locked door that would have admitted us to the screened area above the great hall- but we did eventually get there by going up and down various stairs. ( I wonder if Vita played hide and seek up there) We eventually got to look  through small fretwork holes in the screen and down into the Great Room.

Carved entrance with fretwork screening at the top seen from below.

 Many attics in NT houses have long galleries with art work and this is how it used to be in the 17th century. Then the art work was removed in the 1700s and the Knole attics fell into disrepair.  As a girl she is supposed to have given  tours to house guests. The long draughty corridors were open to the elements at various places along the sides where the roofs came down to gutters. It was the job of servants to clear the snow from these in winter. There was some graffiti on the walls but nothing of real significance. The ceilings in the Retainers Gallery has been replastered but in the South Barracks they remain just as they were. Several fireplaces had been boarded up. I'm not sure how they would have helped with all the openings to the exterior. It was frigid up there even in summer.

 We then moved into the Upper Kings Room where we were told a little history of the carvings and marks left by superstitious staff on the joists. All to ward off witches.This room was above the King's bedroom which had been created for a visit by James 1.

A few artifacts had been found under the floor board including one letter of significance dating to the 1600s. Other than that most were wrappings and cigarette packets left by former workmen.
After we returned to the main hall we quickly did a tour of the main rooms of the house, with their paintings and furniture. and the orangery and beat a hasty retreat to the restaurant for a late, hot lunch. It was just too miserable to contemplate walking around the grounds.
Knole was gifted to the National Trust in 1946. A £19 million respiration was completed in 2019 although conservation still continues.
We were hoping for better day tomorrow when we would visit Sissinghurst.

Sissinghurst.


One of the most iconic of the English, Arts and Crafts style gardens surely has to be Sissinghurst. Visiting would be high on the list of any garden lover finding themselves in the Kent countryside. In fact it is the most visited garden in the country. The gardens were designed and planted by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson, who bought the ruins of this derelict Elizabethan castle, in 1930. The sale brochure had described the property as " A farmstead of squalor and slovenly property"

Maybe it was a good thing that Vita did not inherit Knole or she and Harold would never have bought Sissinghurst, on which to work their garden magic. They began immediately to clear the land to make a garden, and when Vita's mother died in 1936 they had more money to spend on their dream. By 1938 they opened for the National Garden Scheme, twice a year, and by 1940 the garden was open every day.
Very little remains of the original Elizabethan palace but for the tower and the row of buildings which flank the entrance, but in the garden there remain walls which were part of the original palace buildings.

It was our third time to visit Sissinghurst and I was eager to see what changes they had made, having read that the garden had veered away from the original intent of the Nicolsons, which they planned to rectify.  Vita loved a relaxed atmosphere in the garden with plants spilling over pathways and self seeding annuals everywhere. Roses full and billowing. "Cram, cram cram, every chink and cranny" she wrote in 1955. Her white garden had become almost exclusively white and not with shades of gray as she intended. Over the years the whole garden had become more stilted and formal, everything neatly clipped and plants in more formal groups. Pathways were paved to accommodate the many visitors. The garden had lost its original character.

Vita charged a shilling to visit the garden referring quite kindly to the visitors as the 'shillingers'. It was something new to be handed a 'shilling'  for our entry into the garden. We handed in at the gate.

We handed ours in and proceeded into one of the small buildings to the right to watch the video and hear about plans for the remaking of the Delos Garden. Vita and Harold had visited the Greek Island of Delos in the spring of 1932 and had tried to create such a Mediterranean garden, without success. It was decided by the gardening team to remake the Delos garden. Dan Pearson was the architect chosen to do this. I was keen to see what progress they had made, but I would be saving that for later. Right now I was just anxious to see the other parts of the garden.

The original walls of the palace were put to good use in creating garden rooms.

Sometimes major work is required to keep plants healthy. Fortunately yews can take this kind of treatment.

I love Vitas stone troughs which sit along the walls of the building. I think I must find a way to raise mine so that they can be better appreciated. 

The best place to get an overall idea of the garden is from the top of the tower and we headed up there while it was still quiet. We passed by Vita's study, which you can no longer enter and up to the top.

Harold was responsible for the main layout of the garden creating the garden rooms but it was Vita's plantings which brought the garden to life. She would cram plants into every nook and cranny and allow self seeding everywhere.

The main entrance looking towards the farm and oast houses

One of my favorite parts of the garden has always been the herb garden, in particular the beautiful planter supported by three stone lions which sits atop an old mill stone. It is planted with succulents. The Nicolsons purchased the marble bowl in Constantinople on one of their many travels. And the paving that surrounds this area of reclaimed pantiles. The garden is sheltered by a high hedge which traps the warmth and the bench at one end is a wonderful place to sit on a warm day and drink in the fragrance of Mediterranean herbs.

Creeping thyme softens the pavers

Finally we arrived at the construction site that was to be the new Delos Garden. I wondered what had been there on our previous visits. I think the area had become over run with bushes and trees and all signs of the original Delos garden eradicated. 

The Nicolsons were cruising in the Greek Islands in 1932, when they paid a visit to the uninhabited island of Delos. Steeped in Greek mythology, Apollo and Artemis the children of Zeus were born there and the island at one time  had been a center of commerce, culture and religion. The land is barren and rocky but supports a wonderful array of wildflowers which the Nicolsons were fortunate to see. They came home with a plan to create such a garden at Sissinghurst. Unfortunately the climate bears no resemblance to that of Greece nor to the soils of Kent. They added some old stones from the ruins of Sissinghurst to create a small wall over which plants could spill, a rough paving with little plants growing in the cracks and some pieces of Greek sculpture purchased at a house sale. The Delos garden flourished for a few years but the climate took its toll on the Mediterranean plants and small wildflowers like aubretia, saxifrages and tiny poppies. Even as it was becoming more difficult to care for she wrote about rock gardening on the flat in one of her columns in the Observer newspaper. But eventually the garden failed as the trees she had planted grew too large and by the 1970s it was replanted with shrubs and the stones removed and used as the foundation for the gazebo. 

The landscape architect chosen to design and oversea the work is Dan Pearson. You can read more about his project here 

And this is the preparation work required to achieve success the second time around. 

"The plants we will be using are those that are adapted to thrive in a Mediterranean climate. These adaptations include plants with hairy leaves, silver leaves, glossy shiny leaves, and swollen leaves.

Good drainage is critical, and to achieve this we are adding in excess of 300 tonnes of both 20mm and 40mm of drainage aggregate underneath a free draining formulated soil (made up of 50% aggregate, 25% crushed brick and 25% soil). We will also be using an 80mm deep layer of stone mulch. "

I suppose we were disappointed that the garden was still a work in progress but at least we had the opportunity to see the site. Who knows when we will get back there to see the finished garden but I am sure this time the garden will survive and will become one of my favorite parts of the garden.

It is always good to see a garden change and move forward although this time it is a move back in time but in parallel. Sissinghurst is one of my favorite English gardens and I think it is because I have very similar ideas to Vita's about what I love in a garden: the self seeding plants, the slightly untidy look, the stone troughs, bringing back ideas from other lands. Not all of it works, of course.