Travel - Sissinghurst Castle - The Timeless Magic of Vita Sackville-West and husband Harold Nicolson's renowned Castle and Garden

Nestled in Kent, two miles north-east of Cranbrook lies this iconic castle and garden.

It's name recorded as early as 1180, Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson fell in love with Sissinghurst and moved here in 1932.


"Sissinghurst has been a moated manor, an Elizabethan mansion, a spa, a prisoner-of-war camp, a work-house, a hamlet for farm workers and an allotment garden. Today it is a relic, more than halved in size and bearing the scars of much ill-treatment, yet calm, beautiful and unified in its latest reincarnation as a house standing in isolated brick segments in one of the loveliest gardens in England."

                                  - Nigel Nicolson

The tower, where Vita Sackville-West had her study.

Several buildings within the garden date from the original Tudor period. The Priest house is available to hire through the National Trust cottages.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle/

78 steps…shallow steps I might add.

The tower room above her study was filled with an exhibition of family history, and V. Sackville-West's poem of Sissinghurst, with a voice over of the poem being read by her.

Quite good to hear her voice.

 The view of Kent from above.

The walled garden.

The long library which houses over ten thousand books.

Painting of The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West   by Hungarian painter Philip Alexius de Laszlo, 1910.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita_Sackville-West

 The white garden.

 Enormous white peonies and foxgloves.

The lady herself, photographed by Cecil Beaton on the steps of the tower 1956.














Now part of The National Trust, Sissinghurst is open April - October.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle/