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Sissinghurst Castle Garden

The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, near Cranbrook, Goudhurst and Tenterden, is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England. Indeed, some garden enthusiasts would put it first.

History
Sissinghurst's garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. Sackville-West was a writer on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group who found her greatest popularity in the weekly columns she contributed as gardening correspondent of The Observer, which incidentally—for she never touted it—made her own garden famous. Sissinghurst's garden is one of the best-loved in the whole of the United Kingdom, drawing visitors from all over the world. The garden itself is designed as a series of "rooms", each with a different character of colour and/or theme, the walls being high clipped hedges and many pink brick walls.

The site is ancient— "hurst" is the Saxon term for "an enclosed wood". A manorhouse with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages.The house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII's Privy Councillors, and hugely enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. For Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and its garden rooms came to be a poignant and romantic substitute for Knole, reputedly the largest house in Britain, which as the only child of Lionel, the 3rd Lord Sackville she would have inherited had she been a male, but which had passed to her uncle as the male heir.

After the collapse of the Baker family in the late 17th century, the building had many uses: as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years' War; as the workhouse for the Cranbrook Union; after which it became homes for farm labourers.



Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in 1930 after concern that their property Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent, was close to development over which they had no control. Although Sissinghurst was derelict, they purchased the ruins and the farm around it and began constructing the garden we know today. The layout by Nicolson and planting by Sackville-West were both strongly influenced by the gardens of:
  • Gertrude Jekyll and Edwin Lutyens
  • the earlier Cothay Manor in Somerset laid out by Nicolson's friend Colonel Reginald Cooper DSO. Cothay was later described by one garden writer as the "Sissinghurst of the West Country."
  • Hidcote Manor Garden, designed and owned by Lawrence Johnston, which Vita Sackville-West was instrumental in preserving.
Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.


Admission prices
  • Gift Aid Admission (Standard Admission prices in brackets): £9.80 (£8.80)
  • child £4.90 (£4.40)
  • family £24.50 (£22)
  • Groups £7.80 (only applies to booked groups)

Facilities
  • Parking In main car park. Drop-off point
  • Building Level entrance. 5 wheelchairs. Step to library. 78 steps in tower
  • WCs on level ground at ticket office and via ramp at restaurant
  • Grounds Partly accessible, some steps, uneven and narrow paths. Map of accessible route. The garden is not suitable for PMVs
  • Shop Level entrance
  • Refreshments Level entrance

Getting there
  • Bus services Special link from Staplehurst to Garden, Tuesday, Sunday and Bank Holidays only (telephone property for times) otherwise Arriva 5 Maidstone–Hawkhurst (Passing Staplehurst station) Alight Sissinghurst 1¼ mile (20 min walk)
  • Cycles NCN18, 8ml View local cycle routes on the National Cycle Network website
  • Bus 2 miles north east of Cranbrook, 1 mile east of Sissinghurst village on Biddenden Road, off A262
  • By train Staplehurst 5½ miles
  • On foot From Sissinghurst village, past church to footpath on left, signposted to garden. Path can get muddy
Contact details
01580 710701 (Infoline)
01580 710700
Fax: 01580 710702
Email: sissinghurst@nationaltrust.org.uk

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