Sissinghurst

I love Sissinghurst.  If had all the money in the world, I would find a way wrench it away from the national trust and I would live there with an army of gardeners.  Well, that's not going to happen, so the next best thing is reading about it. 

Vita Sackville-West's grandson is married to gardening expert and cook, Sarah Raven.  They live in the family apartments at Sissinghurst and with her love of gardens, Raver spend a great deal of time in the gardens.  As one might expect, she has also spent a great deal of time with Vita's writings about Sissinghurst.  In a hybrid work of garden writing, Raven has taken Vita's writing and combined it with her own story of the garden.  

As Raven points out, "Gardens do not normally survive their creators...."  Sissinghurst is a rare example, perpetuated by surviving family, gardeners and vast, detailed writings. The gardens have retained the influence of vita Sackeville-West, while moving forward to become one of the premier gardens of the world. 

This book offers up a historical look at the garden combined with the modern work being done today.  The book combines old photos along side current photo, displaying the ever changing nature in the life of a garden.

Vita wrote about gardening:

The more one gardens, the more one learns; and the more one learns, the more one realizes how little one knows.

Little did she realize that her vision for the garden would be taken up by her children and grand-children. The beauty of Sissinghurst, what make this garden eternal is remembering the past while learning more each day.  If Vita Sackville-West were to visit Sissinghurst today, she would find it very much as she left it...and magically transformed.  That is the nature of a garden.

Sissinghurst

When last we spoke of Vita Sackville-West, she had lost Knole for her failure to be born male. With no home of her own, she set out to make one. And a fine job she did. Together with her husband, Harold Nicholson, they purchased Sissinghurst and set out to make it their own. Now, as we know, most British families do not have the wherewithal to keep these big, elaborate, estates operating in the twenty-first century. The days of master gardeners working for $300 a year are gone. The solution to preservation is often a crass commercialization. Like Knole, Sissinghurst's only avenue of preservation was the National Trust.


Vita's grandson, Adam Nicholson, still has living privileges at Sissinghurst, a place he lived as a child. Nicholson is married to cook and gardening expert, Sarah Raven. Together, they pitched an idea to the National Trust to rebuild the working farm at Sissinghurst to provide income (not to mention it would make a great series for television and a fine book).

I have a very romantic relationship with Sissinghurst. It bears my favorite room, Vita's writing room in the tower. I love the idea of living at Sissinghurst, though for Adam it was no big box of chocolates. Vita died before he could remember her and she was a bit of a pill when she was young, so I am sure as a "woman of a certain age" she was even pillier. As lovely as these old houses look with their vaulted ceilings and grand rooms, you know they are freezing cold most of the year. I believe the writing room in the tower must have been cozy, but the though of actually living in one of these big estates leaves me cold... literally cold!

As someone who has an old farm, I was very interested in Adam Nicholson's efforts to bring back the working farm. An endeavor such as that always seems so romantic, but the reality is far more work and money than one could ever imagine.

Mostly, I just like to see pictures of Sissinghurst.


At Cookbook Of The Day, we are featuring Sarah Raven's In Season, so you can find out what might be on the table when you visit Sissinghurst.