[Ad- gifted experience] When it comes to National Trust Sites in Essex and the surrounding areas, there are a lot to choose from! The National Trust is an organisation that takes care of gardens and estates that hold a lot of significance, preserving their history. You can pay a membership fee to support the National Trust and have access to tons of different sites all over England. Sissinghurst Castle Garden isn’t a site we had previously visited, and I wasn’t aware of the history around this location. When we arrived, we parked up our car and headed towards the Garden signs.
The first thing we saw was the cafe. Sissinghurst Castle Garden has both a cafe and a restaurant (with the restaurant offering more hearty meals like soups, pies, and the like). The cafe has a bunch of drinks and pastries, along with a used book library and a small shop attached to it. This building also has a plant shop, with plants from the gardens themselves being sold. We grabbed a chai each and a slice of a very delicious almond, cranberry and orange cake, filling our stomachs before heading into the main area. You can purchase tickets for Sissinghurst Castle Garden inside the main area, which allows you to go inside the castle garden entrance. There is a building, called the bellows, which has a breif history on the estate.
In this sort of under area, you can see a massive timeline about the area. Sissinghurst Castle Garden was owned by Vita Sackville-West, a poet and writer and her author husband Harold Nicolson who did a lot of architectural planning of the garden rooms and the plants. Vita aimed at echoing her romance and intimacy of her writing through her gardens. Inside the gardens, you can also see her writing chamber in the tower, left as it was when she passed on, as a look into her life.
What is left of the grounds is really quite lovely to walk around. We grabbed our tickets (which are designed to also be beautiful bookmarks) and headed in. The gardens have a few statues dotted around, many beautiful flowers, and even pillars on one more desert looking area. The flowers are absolutely beautiful! We also saw a giant apple tree being harvested, with people picking the various apples and placing them into a basket.
There is something just so lovely about National Trust sites, and Sigginghurst Castle Garden was no exception. The staff were very lovely, informative, and just around any corner to let us know more about the building, plants, and history. We climbed Vita’s tower, seeing her writing room, which was full of books. There were tons of different items from her life, in the windows of the tower, and as you climbed up you could go in a room that told you all about the Vita. The roof, which you can walk onto, has a beautiful view of the rest of the estate, which we absolutely loved.
It’s a very interesting and beautiful grounds to explore. There are a bunch of talks throughout the day, along with maps to let you know about walking trails around the estate, in case you want a more free-form walk to explore. We had a fantastic time taking pictures, being together, and seeing the romance that Vita strived for in her beautiful gardens.
You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!
