Sissinghurst Castle Garden, 2022

Our first visit to Sissinghurst was in 2013, and we have made it a regular stop in most of our visits to the UK since. The castle dates from the Tudor age, but fell upon hard times by the 18th century, and was a ruin when writers Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson bought it in the early 20th. They brought it back to life, primarily its gardens, and it is an obligatory stop on anyone's itinerary of famous British gardens. Also British literary history. The three posts below

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/06/sissinghurst-castle.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/09/sissinghurst-again.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2016/05/sissinghurst.html

have decent pix of the place, in both spring and fall, and also convey a bit of its history. For us, it was another case of visiting an old favorite friend, but with a very new twist, which I'll get to in due course.

Not huge, by British home and garden standards; but interesting
and important

Interior of the "Elizabethan" barn

In the "White Garden"; Sissinghurst has a variety of "rooms" and
"walks"

The Priest's House, where Vita and Harold's two sons lived with
their nanny

Part of the wall astride the Elizabethan Towers;
Elizabeth I visited the place when it was a great
castle, in the 16th

A book given by Queen Victoria to Nicolson's father; inscribed
by the Queen

Tulip tree?

In one of Vita's Rooms

One of Harold's Walks

The big surprise and treat for us was that the South Cottage was
open--we'd always thought Vita and Harold lived in the wing
opposite the library, but no, they shared the South Cottage as their
living space, although Vita worked and wrote in the Tower

The South Cottage; we got on to a small group tour of the cottage--
three floors, which were left pretty much as they were when 
the couple lived there--Harold lived into the 1960s; furniture,
decor, private libraries, and so on; no fotos are permitted, since
their descendants return and live there in June of each year; but
what a treat!