Sissinghurst Castle & Garden - A Unique Gazebo That is Anything but Remoat!
The unique building perched on the corner of Sissinghurst’s moat was built in 1969 by Nigel Nicolson and his brother Benedict as a memorial to their father, Harold Nicolson. Following recent conservation work to address damp - and other issues - the building has emerged from underneath impressive and creative scaffolding to welcome visitors once more.
The Gazebo was Nigel Nicolson's private summer office – but it was also an office admired by the thousands of visitors to Sissinghurst’s garden. They remember him sitting at his desk with the door open, giving bread to children so that they could feed the birds on the moat. Today visitors stumble upon the Gazebo, discovering the desk at which Nigel wrote his most famous work, Portrait of a Marriage (1973), and taking in the view which inspired him.
This small and quiet building was designed by the architect Francis Pym and Nigel noted during construction that it was exactly the same dimensions as the Apollo 11 lunar module, which had captivated the world in the same year. It is the desk which forms the focal point of the room and images of it cluttered with working papers, books, and a distinctive typewriter have provided inspiration in its presentation. Above the desk unfolds an extraordinary view over the Weald of Kent, which had been Nigel’s favourite since childhood. As a result the Gazebo is private and without windows on the garden side but completely open onto the view across the moat.
The Gazebo contained a working library and its shelves were - and are - overflowing with books. An entire shelf was devoted to Jane Austen, which must have been assembled as Nigel worked on another book, The World of Jane Austen (1991). Books also included works on the history and archaeology of Kent, together with a number on Ordnance Survey maps, in which Nigel was particularly interested. Where possible we have purchased and replaced books in exactly the same edition as those that Nigel owned and visitors are now able to explore these shelves.
The project to conserve and open the Gazebo has captured the imagination of the entire team at Sissinghurst. It is a space which will continue grow and develop over time – in the organic way a writing room does and should. Books will continue to be found and added by the property team and memories will be collected and shared.
One of the most moving of these is captured in a letter from Nigel to a visitor to his Gazebo in 2002 as he notes that “an open door means open to everybody, and I was very happy to welcome you and your family. Come again.”
For more information please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden/featu...
The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, in England at Sissinghurst village, is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is grade I listed.
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. 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 rooms and 'doors' are so arranged that, as one enjoys the beauty in a given room, one suddenly discovers a new vista into another part of the garden, making a walk a series of discoveries that keeps leading one into yet another area of the garden. Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new interconnections, while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in the interior of each room exciting.
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 cousin as the male heir.
The site is ancient; "hurst" is the Saxon term for an enclosed wood. A manor house with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages. In 1305, King Edward I spent a night here. It was long thought that in 1490 Thomas Baker, a man from Cranbrook, purchased Sissinghurst, although there is no evidence for it. What is certain is that the house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII's Privy Councillors, and greatly enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. In August 1573 Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst.
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; by the earlier Cothay Manor in Somerset, laid out by Nicolson's friend Reginald Cooper, and described by one garden writer as the "Sissinghurst of the West Country"; and by Hidcote Manor Garden, designed and owned by Lawrence Johnston, which Sackville-West helped to preserve. Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.
The National Trust took over the whole of Sissinghurst, its garden, farm and buildings, in 1967. The garden epitomises the English garden of the mid-20th century. It is now very popular and can be crowded in peak holiday periods. In 2009, BBC Four broadcast an eight-part television documentary series called Sissinghurst, describing the house and garden and the attempts by Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven, who are 'Resident Donors', to restore a form of traditional Wealden agriculture to the Castle Farm. Their plan is to use the land to grow ingredients for lunches in the Sissinghurst restaurant. A fuller version of the story can be found in Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008).
For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissinghurst_Castle_Garden and www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden
Sissinghurst Castle & Garden - A Unique Gazebo That is Anything but Remoat!
The unique building perched on the corner of Sissinghurst’s moat was built in 1969 by Nigel Nicolson and his brother Benedict as a memorial to their father, Harold Nicolson. Following recent conservation work to address damp - and other issues - the building has emerged from underneath impressive and creative scaffolding to welcome visitors once more.
The Gazebo was Nigel Nicolson's private summer office – but it was also an office admired by the thousands of visitors to Sissinghurst’s garden. They remember him sitting at his desk with the door open, giving bread to children so that they could feed the birds on the moat. Today visitors stumble upon the Gazebo, discovering the desk at which Nigel wrote his most famous work, Portrait of a Marriage (1973), and taking in the view which inspired him.
This small and quiet building was designed by the architect Francis Pym and Nigel noted during construction that it was exactly the same dimensions as the Apollo 11 lunar module, which had captivated the world in the same year. It is the desk which forms the focal point of the room and images of it cluttered with working papers, books, and a distinctive typewriter have provided inspiration in its presentation. Above the desk unfolds an extraordinary view over the Weald of Kent, which had been Nigel’s favourite since childhood. As a result the Gazebo is private and without windows on the garden side but completely open onto the view across the moat.
The Gazebo contained a working library and its shelves were - and are - overflowing with books. An entire shelf was devoted to Jane Austen, which must have been assembled as Nigel worked on another book, The World of Jane Austen (1991). Books also included works on the history and archaeology of Kent, together with a number on Ordnance Survey maps, in which Nigel was particularly interested. Where possible we have purchased and replaced books in exactly the same edition as those that Nigel owned and visitors are now able to explore these shelves.
The project to conserve and open the Gazebo has captured the imagination of the entire team at Sissinghurst. It is a space which will continue grow and develop over time – in the organic way a writing room does and should. Books will continue to be found and added by the property team and memories will be collected and shared.
One of the most moving of these is captured in a letter from Nigel to a visitor to his Gazebo in 2002 as he notes that “an open door means open to everybody, and I was very happy to welcome you and your family. Come again.”
For more information please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden/featu...
The garden at Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of Kent, in England at Sissinghurst village, is owned and maintained by the National Trust. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is grade I listed.
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. 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 rooms and 'doors' are so arranged that, as one enjoys the beauty in a given room, one suddenly discovers a new vista into another part of the garden, making a walk a series of discoveries that keeps leading one into yet another area of the garden. Nicolson spent his efforts coming up with interesting new interconnections, while Sackville-West focused on making the flowers in the interior of each room exciting.
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 cousin as the male heir.
The site is ancient; "hurst" is the Saxon term for an enclosed wood. A manor house with a three-armed moat was built here in the Middle Ages. In 1305, King Edward I spent a night here. It was long thought that in 1490 Thomas Baker, a man from Cranbrook, purchased Sissinghurst, although there is no evidence for it. What is certain is that the house was given a new brick gatehouse in the 1530s by Sir John Baker, one of Henry VIII's Privy Councillors, and greatly enlarged in the 1560s by his son Sir Richard Baker, when it became the centre of a 700-acre (2.8 km2) deer park. In August 1573 Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst.
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; by the earlier Cothay Manor in Somerset, laid out by Nicolson's friend Reginald Cooper, and described by one garden writer as the "Sissinghurst of the West Country"; and by Hidcote Manor Garden, designed and owned by Lawrence Johnston, which Sackville-West helped to preserve. Sissinghurst was first opened to the public in 1938.
The National Trust took over the whole of Sissinghurst, its garden, farm and buildings, in 1967. The garden epitomises the English garden of the mid-20th century. It is now very popular and can be crowded in peak holiday periods. In 2009, BBC Four broadcast an eight-part television documentary series called Sissinghurst, describing the house and garden and the attempts by Adam Nicolson and his wife Sarah Raven, who are 'Resident Donors', to restore a form of traditional Wealden agriculture to the Castle Farm. Their plan is to use the land to grow ingredients for lunches in the Sissinghurst restaurant. A fuller version of the story can be found in Nicolson's book, Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History (2008).
For further information please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissinghurst_Castle_Garden and www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden