Sissinghurst Castle Garden

A must-see in Kent, not too far away and run by the National Trust, Sissinghurst is stunningly beautiful at this time of year. 


The buildings are largely C16, having been used as a prison for 3000 French captives, who dubbed the tower 'Château de Sissingherst', it being far from luxurious for them. By the 1800's. the castle was home to the Mann Cornwallis family.


The garden was created in the 1930's by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson. It is divided into many different areas of planting scheme - of single colour, complementary colours, a rose garden, herbs - all with narrow paths between the beds to allow cose examination of individual plants. A general photo does not fully represent the lavish planting or the sheer exuberance of blossom. Main photo of the tower, extra 1 was taken from the White Garden, of the tower, extra 2  is a climbing rose that happened to be at head height, to represent the wide range of roses.


We climbed the tower for views over the garden and far beyond; Vita had her writing room within the tower and we peered through a grille at her collection of books and, in window recesses, displays of her Bristol Blue glass collection.

The weather warnings for heat were observed by everyone, with hardly a bare head to be seen, even so, 25.5C was quite high enough for us pale Scots.