Sissinghurst Castle Garden
(vero;2026-March-30)
These gardens created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson are among the most famous in England. Vita was an author and became known for her passionate love affairs with women such as writer Violet Trefusis and novelist Virginia Woolf (who drew heavily on the Vita/Violet affair in her novel Orlando). Harold was a diplomat, a politician and writer; he designed the layout of the garden while Vita managed the planting with a team of gardeners.
The Sissinghurst estate has a long history and started as a Saxon pig farm in the 12th century. It was sold in 1490 to a Thomas Baker of Cranbrook and expanded by his grandson Sir John Baker, an influential English politician, who built a brick house on its grounds. Sir John's eldest son, Sir Richard transformed it into a large Elizabethan house (a so-called Prodigy House) in the 1530s fit to host Queen Elizabeth I (who visited in 1573). The estate and the house declined after the collapse of the Baker family fortunes following the civil war (1642-51) and was eventually leased to the government who used it as a prison for captured French sailors during the Seven Years' War (1756-63). Most part of the Elizabethan house was demolished in the 1800s and it was a ruin used as a barn and a farm building that Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson bought in 1930 and transformed into the garden and the house we see today.
The entrance fee to the house and the gardens was 20£ for non-members when we visited in 2025, the car park was 4.50£ (free for members). Click here for up-to-date visitor information.
Go back to Hever Castle: the ghost of Anne Boleyn or go on to Scotney Castle or go up to Kent
$ updated from: South East England.htxt Sun 24 May 2026 15:57:34 trvl2 — Copyright © 2026 Vero and Thomas Lauer unless otherwise stated | All rights reserved $