Coplestone Warre Bampfylde
(1720-1791) designed and laid out the landcape garden after inheriting the
property from his father in 1750.
In 1972 Hestercombe was
acquired by the 1st Viscount Portman. In 1904 his grandson, Hon Edward Portman commissioned
architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) to create a new formal garden.
Lutyens worked on the design
with the artist/gardener Gertrude Jeckyll (1843-1932). This garden is considered to be one of
their greatest successes.
In 1944 the estate was old
to the Crown Estates who continue to hold the land apart from the house and
formal gardens, which were sold in 1973 to Somerset County Council.
Garden features:
• terraces at various
levels joined by stone steps
• sunken central garden
(core of the formal garden plan)
• pergola
• herbaceous borders
Sissinghurst was the home of
English poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) and writer and English
diplomat sir Harold Nicholson (1886-1968). In 1930 the couple purchased the property and began to
establish the gardens, with some assistance from architect A.R. Powys. The garden was designed as a series of
“garden rooms”. Harold
and Vita essentially lived in this garden as though it was a part of the
house. The garden linked the
disassociated buildings on the site together. The bedrooms and sitting room were located in the South
Cottage, the dining room in the Priest’s House, and the library and the
Vita’s study were in the Tower.
The “garden rooms” included the Top Courtyard as entrance
hall, the White Garden near to the Priest’s house as outdoor dining room,
the Cottage Garden, an open-air sitting room, and the Lime Walk, a long
gallery. Vita was an avid rose and
herb collector. The results of her
passion are the rose and herb garden.
Vita’s son Nigel who
inherited the estate in 1962 shortly after his mother’s death offered the
property to the National Trust*.
Vita had been a founder member of the Trust’s Garden Committee in
1948 and had supported the trust enthusiastically, as had Harold who joined its
Council in 1944 and was later vice-Chairman of its Executive Committee. The estate was officially
transferred to the Trust in 1967.
Harold continued to live on the grounds until his death in 1968.
“Profusion, even
extravagance and exuberance within the confines of the utmost linear
severity” was Vita-Sackville West’s description of her garden. Over 200,000 garden enthusiasts visit
Sissinghurst each year.
Garden Features:
• The Top Courtyard
• The Lower Courtyard
• The Rose Garden
• The Lime Walk
• The Cottage Garden
• The Nuttery
• The Moat Walk
• The Herb Garden
• The Orchard
• The White Garden
*The
National Trust is a nonprofit organization committed to saving diverse historic
environments. The Trust was
established in England in 1895. It
owns and administers several hundreds of buildings and gardens of historical or
architectural worth and large stretches of land that are thus protected from
detrimental development.
Sackville-West,
Victoria Mary (1892-1962), English
poet and novelist, member of the ancient and aristocratic Sackville family,
proprietors of Knole, an estate in Kent dating from the Tudor period. Vita Sackville-West (as she was
generally known) wrote several novels, among them The Edwardians (1930); All Passion Spent
(1931), a novel of marriage, widowhood, and aging; and Pepita (1937), a fictionalized biography of her
grandmother. Her poetry includes The
Land (1926), minutely describing the
rural year in Kent. A notable
gardener, she developed the famous gardens at her home, Sissinghurst Castle,
which now belongs to the National Trust.
In 1913 Sackville-West married the English diplomat and man of letters Sir
Harold Nicolson. Their son, Nigel
Nicholson, wrote Portrait of a Marriage (1973), which describes their unconventional relationship. Both Harold Nicholson and
Sackville-West pursued homosexual relationships while maintaining their
marriage. The relationship between
Sackville-West and the novelist Virginia Woolf was a powerful influence on the
life and art of both women. Their
relationship has been the subject of much critical re-evaluation. Elements of Sackville-West’s
biography and of her family history are interwoven in Wolf’s witty Orlando (1928).