More of Sissinghurst

As I said in the previous post, it was the details I saw that so inspired me, more than the overall grandeur of the place.

Before we begin, as an aside: Ian Hislop and wife Victoria live in Sissinghurst village. I can recommend her book The Island, which I enjoyed reading after we had visited the place about which it is written (a leper colony off of Malta). I hadn't realised until now she was married to him. (I originally had links to these people and the book, but decided I didn't want to spend my life fighting with Blogger's formatting).

What with bees being in danger of extinction (and we will surely follow soon after), wild flower meadows are a popular thing here. They look dead simple to create, but according to one of the gardeners, they require quite a bit of work, as least to begin with. 

I just thought this was a perfect stack of arched doorway and wonderful windows.

What's so great about some plain old flower vases, an old brick wall and some gardener's notes on a big piece of slate? I don't know, I just liked it.

Archways often get to me.

I cheated and took a couple of photos inside the tower, mostly out the window. I couldn't believe how laser sharp those hedges were cut.

And these flowers were just too exuberant not to snap.

Can you imagine what it would be like to have an archway dividing your house? It's lovely to look at, but what if you were downstairs and wanted to be across the way? It would be good exercise, mind.

There were several examples of some sort of square or rectangular vessel propped up on legs of some kind that struck me as copy-able at home somehow.

I always hate to see the back of people's furniture (dressing tables are the worst culprit) in their windows, but somehow I don't mind books so much. And there is nothing so romantic as leaded pane windows...

well, unless it's leaded pane windows and with climbing roses. Can you see the very simple door handle on that weathered wood door?

Doorways and wrought iron are both terribly picturesque in my book.

A beckoning gate...with another of those primitive handles.

Like I said I'm no gardener and I've no idea what these plants are, other than they are some of my favourite colours.

These dark purple poppies(?) would look great in my tiny garden...

I think this sort of room formed by hedges is a relatively common feature at a number of National Trust properties.

And not just rooms, but corridors - always with a focal point at each end.

These trees weren't only espaliered, but the limbs had been grafted together so that they formed a continuous line of branches. This was really effective, but for some reason I also found it a tad creepy, as though the trees had been robbed of their independence. Silly of me, I know.

The small pots don't look nearly as haphazard as they do in my yard, probably because I don't have a five foot statue or those two enormous pots to give them a proper setting.

Sorry this is a bit crooked...I just loved the ornate bench.

This 'window in the wall' might be my favourite of these photos. As I mentioned, Bill and I thought the extensive walls might have once formed rooms in the former castle, though a window this size wouldn't have been in a castle that served as a fortress. It often struck me that much of the charm of the Sissinghurst garden is not in the plants themselves, but in the amazing architectural structures that provide the backdrop.

I think Sissinghurst may be most famous for Vita and Harold's white garden. It is quite striking. I don't think they would have had the discipline (nor would I) to stick to all white, had they not had so many other 'rooms' in which to splash around some colours.

The rose pergola got to me, like they always do. If you Google images of pergola you get some clumsy looking wooden structures, but this one is light and airy.

We visited a rose garden somewhere a few years ago and neither of us can remember where. One day I will spend some time looking through photos - I took a LOT - to find the enormous pergola covered with roses. Roses are pretty easy to grow here in England, even I can do it, amazingly.  The trick seems to be to keep deadheading them. 

More white flowers, set off with grey foliage.

I loved the mix of large stones, small stones and the occasional arrangement of a few bricks. It looks almost as though it could have occurred naturally.

Another inviting doorway.

An abundance of pink!

From the other side...

There is some decorating 'rule' that anything looks good in multiples. I was thinking these two watering cans looked cozy together, tucked up against this wall and surrounded by plants. 

I think for much of this visit to Sissinghurst I felt as though I'd fallen down a rabbit hole. 

Sissinghurst in July

I know I've mentioned being in Germany recently, and I will try to blog about that eventually, but first I hope to catch up (chance would be a fine thing) with earlier travel this year.




Almost immediately after Sarah's wedding Bill's sister and brother-in-law went home to Australia and we took off for the South of England. 



One could write forever about the North-South divide in Britain and it is all quite sad to me. 

The main resentment seems to be about economics, but I could cheerfully hate all English Southerners (not really) just because they more often experience summer.

Love the stripey lawns. No idea how they do that.

That weather, and the fact that it had been over a decade since we visited London, was our primary reason for going, I thought. 




I hadn't really appreciated that Bill had a long list of National Trust properties lined up to visit! The first was Sissinghurst.

The famous white garden.

I think I may have heard that name in passing back when I lived in the States, but I'm pretty sure I never heard of Vita Sackville-West. 




Learning about this startling woman was one of my early wonders learning about my new homeland. If you don't know about her already, I'll wait now, while you go read about her here. 




What the rich and titled get up to, eh? When I try to think of American counterparts, I can't come up with any. Maybe FDR and Eleanor, but strange as their lives were they stood for something altogether opposite so they aren't really the example I'm after.

You could also read about Vita's husband, Harold Nicholson though his biography isn't littered with nearly as many interesting names as hers. I did recognize one, Sir Percy Loraine, whose family I've written about before.

So, people aside, what about this place? Wikipedia's entries refer to either the village of Sissinghurst or the Sissinghurst castle garden, so clearly the house itself is not the focus. That said, Wikipedia says this about 'Sissinghurst Castle':

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 deer park. In August 1573, Queen Elizabeth I spent three nights at Sissinghurst.

I don't know about you, but the association of the place with three monarchs over nearly three centuries impresses me deeply. (Not that I'm royalist, but this is history!) Whatever it looked like back then, however, the house itself doesn't really look like a castle. There is a tower and a house the size of a Victorian terrace of houses (sorry, I know that won't mean much to American readers). It looks quite long but perhaps only one room deep, with lovely leaded windows. There are smaller buildings dotted around, including an oast house. 





It  was apparently called a 'ruined Elizabethan manor house' in 1930 when Vita bought it. I can't find a confirmation but I think I remember reading on this visit that it was her money that bought the house and that she paid £25,000 ($32,550) for it. Oh, to be a time traveller...




Of  course Sissinghurst was a substitute for the place Vita really wanted to own, the place where she grew up, Knole House. We also visited there and I very much preferred Sissinghurst, which may be testament to all the care and attention Vita and Harold gave to it.




We  got to tour the tower, but no photos were allowed inside, which was disappointing, particularly the room in which Vita Sackville-West did her writing. I guessed there would be other photos available, and I was right. 




The top of the tower of course gave a wonderful vantage for seeing the grounds and most of the photos here were taken from there. 

Oast house on the right.

The garden (gardens?) are of course the world famous feature. Bill and I felt that the extensive brick walls might have once been the walls of the castle. The other 'walls' that enclose areas into what feels like rooms are tall hedges. 

...6 full-time, 2 part-time, a student, 2 nursery (?), and lots of volunteers care for the garden...

I'm no gardener, sadly, but walking through Sissinghurst's garden rooms made me want to run back home and get to digging. If only I could have brought Kent's weather back with me...

I'm sure there are hundreds of books written about Sissinghurst and its people, so I'll stop here and go find some photos....I meant to only write one post about this place, but I can see I need another post to share all those details that so grabbed me, much like this one.

Charlotte's Birthday Party

Well, I had another cultural experience last weekend. Bill's granddaughter, Charlotte, turned 4 this month and we went over to Manchester to attend her party. We were lucky that the party had been planned for the middle of the month, as we were in Germany on her birthday.

It sounds like the whole month has been pretty special for the birthday girl. On the actual day she got to choose the restaurant for their evening meal. Turns out that was a pub at the bottom of their street that serves food. They went camping a couple of weekends (though that may not have been about her birthday). Her mother started making fancy foods out of this book. The first effort was a red-headed mermaid, but I witnessed the creation of this masterpiece. 

Bread and chicken slices cut into a circle, the 4 is cucumber peel, the candles are carrot sticks and flame-shaped bits of cheese slices, all surrounded with half-grapes. 

I think it's all a bit mental, but Helen seems to enjoy doing it. 

The party was held at the Atherton Cricket Club for the event, the same place we went after Charlotte's christening a few years ago.



Helen made (regular) sandwiches and, after removing the crusts, cut them into rectangles and triangles. She then put together a prototype for the plates and had Martin take a photo with his phone, so he could put together the other 10 or 11 plates at the party. 

He did this while I put table cloths on the tables, secured with Blu-tack (something like chewing gum used to stick things on surfaces without damaging paint, only not as sticky and therefore useful; I'm not a fan of the stuff, but it is widely used over here). Helen issued orders about table arrangements and reminded Charlotte to greet her guests. 




Most were brought by mothers but there were actually a few dads in attendance; I don't remember dads at the parties I attended as a child, do you? When the plates were assembled Martin and I covered them with cling-film (what I used to call Saran wrap). 

A stack of Disney DVDs played as background music. I was quite nostalgic about those from Mary Poppins and Snow White. It's impressive how many dads know all the moves to the song Let It Go.



A mini-bouncy castle was set up, an automatic bubble blowing machine was put to work outside and a dozen or so blown-up balloons were scattered around the place. 

A face-painting lady set up her kit in one corner. 

As the guests arrived they just naturally kicked off their shoes and jumped in the bouncy castle, under Bill's watchful eye. Or they grabbed a balloon and batted it about the room. Or they ran in groups around the cricket ground, or gathered around the bubble machine to try to catch or pop bubbles. Bread sticks were available for snacks. The kids absolutely inhaled them.

Chicken sandwiches, sausages, cheese, cucumber & carrots; how healthy can you get?

One by one they were invited to go have their faces painted and soon they were all decked out, not just in party clothes, but with various emblems or masks ranging from a cupcake to a butterfly to a tiger face and all sorts of fairy-like designs as well. I've never seen 4-year-old's sit so still.

My little pony?

After they ran around for about an hour, they were invited in for lunch and the plates were presented along with Disney napkins and orange or red coloured drinks, whatever is the British version of Kool-Aid. 



Then plates of chocolate and icing covered biscuits (that I still call cookies). 






And then an amazing multi-layered cake, also made by a pro.

After cake came a couple of games, led by Helen (who is, after all a professional herself, being a primary school teacher and a Brownie leader). One was 'Pass the Parcel'. This involves a present wrapped in multiple layers. Helen alternated between gift wrap and newspaper. 




The parcel was passed around the children sitting in a circle to accompanying music. When the music stopped the child holding the parcel unwrapped a layer. Then it continued on its journey around the circle until the music stopped and the next layer was removed. I gather from conversations since that some small sweet would be found between layers so that each child got a little something until the main prize was opened by the final winner (a box full of colouring tools, I think it was). Also that there should be as many layers as there were children so that each child got something (because the music was carefully timed). I'm not sure if that's what happened, but it all seemed to go brilliantly anyhow. I didn't realize that there were multiple layers and Bill remarked that he'd forgotten I was 'foreign' else I would know this. Or is it about my age instead of citizenship?

If there was anything that marred the perfection of this party it was dog poo. I saw at least 3-4 moms headed for the loo with a wrinkled nose and a shoe in hand. I still love dogs, but I'm not sure I like dog owners much these days.

The next game was described as a 'dance contest' but it was actually more about being still: when the music stopped everyone had to 'freeze'. Anyone who moved was kicked out of the game (and joyfully ran out doors to run around some more). 




We  left about then since we had a long drive ahead. Fortunately Charlotte had already been kicked out and we could say good bye to the birthday girl.

I'm not good with kids, having been an only child and, for over a decade, an only grandchild and never having any children of my own. I can just about interact with Charlotte if I'm patient - or probably it's really if she's patient. Anyhow, I was thinking that a room full of 4-year-old children was probably my definition of hell; instead it turned out to be quite fun to watch.

And several G&T's helped a bit...