Sissinghurst Castle
Sissinghurst Castle is a historic country estate in the English county of Kent , about 40 kilometers southwest of Canterbury . The garden that has become famous was laid out in 1930 by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson and preserved in this form. Today Sissinghurst is owned by the National Trust . The complex, which is open to the public, is one of the most popular gardens in the world with more than 160,000 paying visitors annually. The residential complex consists of five separate buildings: the main house, the long library, the (double) tower, the South Cottage and the Priest's House.
history
The name Sissinghurst comes from Old English and means clearing in the woods . In the Middle Ages , an estate was built on this site, which was protected by a moat. The original building was acquired by the Baker family in 1480 and replaced by a large manor house. This was one of the first large houses in Kent to be built with bricks rather than half-timbered houses . The Bakers were connected to the Sackvilles in Knole by marriage .
In 1756 the house was handed over to the government, which used it as a prison for over 3,000 French prisoners of war during the Seven Years' War . The term Castle of Sissinghurst also comes from this period . After the war, over two thirds of the property was destroyed. For the next 50 years, the remaining buildings were used as a poor house. In 1855 the property went to the Cornwalli family, who built the farm as the old buildings were barely habitable. In 1928 it was on sale for two years.
Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson, became aware of Sissinghurst after their Long Barn property near Sevenoaks in Kent proved too small for further development. Although Sissinghurst was in a state of dilapidation and they knew it was going to be immense and laborious, they bought it in 1930. For Vita Sackville-West, Sissinghurst was the symbolic link to their beloved birthplace, Knole. She was the only child and heir to Lionel, 3rd Lord Sackville. As a woman, however, she could not inherit Knole; it fell to her uncle.
The design of the garden by Harold Nicolson and the planting by Vita Sackville-West were strongly influenced by the gardens of Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens as well as the garden of Hidcote Manor . The latter was designed by Lawrence Johnston . In 1930 the cottages in the upper courtyard were torn down, the lion pond (now a sink garden) was created in the lower garden, and work began on exposing the grave walls and cutting out the nut garden. In the following year a pond was completed and the entrance arch of the forecourt was reopened. In the same year, almost all the rubble in the garden could be removed. In 1932, Harold and Vita moved to Sissinghurst after renting Long Barn. Vita Sackville-West's mother, Lady Sackville, gave Sissinghurst six bronze vases. That same year, Harold and Vita hired architect AR Powys.
Sissinghurst was opened to the public as early as 1938. The National Trust took over the property in 1967, but the family still has right of residence. Since 1992, both the number of simultaneous visitors to the garden and the total number of visitors per year have been regulated. The latter has since been kept at around 160,000 to protect the garden.
In May 2013, Troy Scott Smith took over the post of head gardener, succeeding Alexis Datta. This had taken early retirement because of public disputes with the Nicolson family over the design of the garden. The media savvy Troy Scott Smith is more in line with Adam Nicolson, 5th Baron Carnock , the grandson of Sackville-West, who advocates a more relaxed style in the garden. He hopes to "bring more of Vita's artistic spirit back into the planting."
Head gardener:
- Jack Vass 1939-1941 and 1946-1957
- Ronald Platt 1957-1959
- Pam Schwerdt and Sibylle Kreutzberger 1959–1981
- Sarah Cook and Alexis Datta 1981-2013
- Troy Scott Smith 2013-2019
- Michelle Cain since 2019
The garden
Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West divided the approximately five hectare site into ten separate garden rooms. The 'walls' are more than man-high, accurately cut yew hedges ; but also preserved walls were included.
Each of the 'gardens in the garden' has a specific theme; so there is the white garden, the rose garden and the herb garden. The design of the garden combines a great simplicity of the overall system with opulent plants.
Upper and lower courtyard
The upper courtyard with its spacious lawn forms the entrance to the garden. On two sides it is lined with the famous purple border. The passage in the tower leads to the lower courtyard, also characterized by a lawn. The surrounding walls are covered with clematis and roses .
The tower
The twin tower is one of the oldest parts of Sissinghurst Castle. A wooden spiral staircase leads to the upper floors, where Vita Sackville-West used to retreat to read and work. From the observation deck on the tower there is a view of the entire property, and in good weather all the way to Canterbury .
The rose garden
The rose garden documents Vita Sackville-West's fondness for old rose varieties. She loved their lush flowers, velvety colors and their scent and accepted that, unlike modern varieties, they only bloom once a year (in June). Today the flowering time of the garden is extended by adding perennials and clematis.
The Lindengang
It was Harold Nicolson's work. With him he created a classic Italian garden , with small statues at each end, loosened up by Tuscan terracotta pots. The Lindengang is a spring garden that lies fallow the rest of the year. Because of the large number of bulbs in the ground, no other plantings can be made. Only the flowers in the terracotta pots bloom outside of this time.
The cottage garden
The South Cottage on the edge of the cottage garden was the first building made habitable after the purchase of Sissinghurst. The cottage garden was laid out as an enhancement of the classic English garden. Since both Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson took equally intensive care of the flowers, the differences in preferences can be clearly seen here. While Harold Nicolson loved the formal, but allowed differences, Vita Sackville-West preferred the opulent, but preferably in one color (depending on the season). The garden bench on the side of the cottage garden is a design by Edwin Lutyens . At the other end of the corridor, by the moat, is a statue of the Greek god Dionysus .
The moat and the nut garden
The ditch leads from the cottage garden to the moat. On one side the corridor is bordered by a brick wall from which the flowers of a white wisteria hang down. On the other side there is an azalea slope to which the nut garden connects.
The herb garden
At the south-eastern corner of the garden is the herb garden , which, with over a hundred types of herbs, is said to be the most diverse herb garden in England. Vita Sackville-West was supposed to be able to determine every herb by its smell with closed eyes.
The moat and the orchard
Of the original moat around the property, only the eastern and part of the northern moat remain. There are old oak trees on their banks. The two arms of the trench enclose the orchard. In spring, daffodils bloom there , followed by fruit trees and roses. The meadow is only cut twice a year, but is made accessible by short-cut grass paths.
The white garden
The best known is certainly the White Garden. The plants gathered here bloom in all shades of white, many with gray or silver colored foliage. The focal point is a pavilion, overgrown by a white blooming climbing rose.
The farm
The property also had a working farm built in 1855 by the Cornwalli family. The associated land was partially leased by the Nicholsons. The eastern part was leased to Captain Oswald Beale, the owner of the adjacent Bettenham. Among other things, he laid out a hop garden on the site. There was also a dairy farm with Shorthorn cattle . When Vita Sackville-West inherited her mother's fortune in 1936, she bought Bettenham, which was in financial difficulties, and hired Beale as administrator. In 1940 she bought Brissenden Farm, in 1941 Little Bettenham. Beale died in 1957 and his son-in-law, a Canadian fighter pilot, took over. The Bettenham house and land were sold separately by Harold Nicolson in 1963 to pay inheritance tax after Vita Sackville-West's death. After Stearne died in 1967, his son James Beale and uncle John Beale, a virologist, became tenants. Due to economic problems, the Beales gave up the farm in 1989, since then the land has been leased to surrounding farmers, the family still has the right to live on the farm. Agriculture was converted to modern intensive culture.
literature
- Tony Lord: Sissinghurst. One of the most beautiful gardens in England . Dumont Buchverlag Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7701-3761-2
- Vita Sackville-West, Harold Nicolson. Zsgest. by Julia Bachstein: Sissinghurst: Portrait of a garden . Insel-Verlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-458-34883-2
- Anja Birne: Romantic garden trips in England . Callwey Verlag, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7667-2202-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ u. a. BBC series Sissinghust, aired February 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hvvg9
- ^ [1] Telegraph.co.uk
- ^ Troy Scott-Smith, Revitalizing Vita. The English Garden November 2013, 83-90
- ↑ “I hope to bring back more of Vita's artistic spirit to the planting” online , accessed on October 30, 2013
- ↑ sissinghurstntblog: Jack Vass: the forgotten Head Gardener, Part 1. In: SISSINGHURST GARDEN. November 13, 2014, accessed July 13, 2017 .
- ↑ Ina Sperl: Sissinghurst: Redemption of a garden . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . March 12, 2016, ISSN 0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed July 14, 2017]).
- ^ Visiting the Sissinghurst Girls | EMMA. Retrieved July 13, 2017 .
- ^ Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst, an unfinished history. London, Harper 2008, ISBN 978-0007240555 , 247
- ^ Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst, an unfinished history. London, Harper 2008, ISBN 978-0007240555 , 250
- ^ Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst, an unfinished history. London, Harper 2008, ISBN 978-0007240555 , 250
- ^ Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst, an unfinished history. London, Harper 2008, ISBN 978-0007240555 , 251
- ^ Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst, an unfinished history. London, Harper 2008, ISBN 978-0007240555 , 253
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 6 ′ 57 ″ N , 0 ° 34 ′ 54 ″ E