Sissinghurst Castle Garden was created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England’s register of historic parks and gardens. The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses. The site is ancient and has been occupied since at least the Middle Ages.
About Sissinghurst Castle Garden in brief
Sissinghurst Castle Garden was created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England’s register of historic parks and gardens. The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses. The site is ancient and has been occupied since at least the Middle Ages. The present-day buildings began as a house built in the 1530s by Sir John Baker. In 1554 Sir John’s daughter Cecily married Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset. In the mid-19th century, the remaining buildings were in use as a workhouse, and by the 20th century Sissedhurst had declined to the status of a farmstead. In 1928 the castle was advertised for sale but remained unsold for two years. In 1962, the estate was donated to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and is now one of the Trust’s most popular properties, with nearly 200,000 visitors in 2017. The White Garden has been particularly influential, with the horticulturalist Tony Lord describing it as ‘the most ambitious… of its time, the most entrancing of its type’ and ‘one of the finest collections in the world’. A number of plants propagated in the gardens bear names related to people connected with Sissingurst or the name of the garden itself. The garden design is based on axial walks that open onto enclosed gardens, termed ‘garden rooms’, and is one of earliest examples of this gardening style.
The earliest owners as the de Saxin de Berhams is named in an 1180 charter about the nearby Combinwell Priory. At the end of the 13th century the estate had passed through marriage, to the deBerhams of Berham, who constructed a moated house in an appearance similar to that of Igham Mote, which was later replaced by a brick manor. More recent studies cast doubt on the existence of an earlier stone manor, suggesting that the nearest moat was at the corner of the nearest orchard, occupying the site of the orchard. Edward I is reputed to have stayed at the moat for 130 years, occupying an earlier house, perhaps a timber house, or perhaps a slightly earlier construction of timber or timber, instead of a brick or timber manor instead of the earlier timber house. The current owner of the site is Edward I, who is believed to have lived in the nearby orchard for the first 130 years of his life, and may have stayed in this house for the next 130 years. The estate is now owned by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of England, which is based at the nearby St James’s Park. The Royal College is based in London and has a number of gardens around the world, including the White Garden in the south of England.
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This page is based on the article Sissinghurst Castle Garden published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
