Many National Trust places were home to people who challenged conventional ideas of gender and sexuality. We look after special places for ever, for everyone and LGBTQ heritage plays an important part in Sissinghurst’s story.
Husband and wife, Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West, had same sex, extra marital affairs, both before and after they moved to Sissinghurst. Their relationships challenged societal norms which influenced them both creatively. Vita's relationship with Virginia Woolf inspired much of her writing.
A number of queer objects belonging to Vita in particular can be seen on display throughout the year.
Once a term of abuse, queer has now been reclaimed by the LGBTQ community as encompassing all aspects of difference across gender and sexuality, a spectrum rather than fixed categories. Our list of queer objects includes the photograph of Virginia Woolf which sat on Vita’s desk up until her death in 1967, and for 20 years after Virginia’s. http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/803062
Arguably the most important love affair Vita had was with her childhood friend Violet Trefusis (nee Keppel). This important relationship is reflected in the position of high esteem that a portrait of Violet takes in Vita’s sacrosanct writing room. http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/2900015
