Poetry trail
1 - 30 November
Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) will be chiefly remembered for her association with Sissinghurst, but her writings, novels, travel books and her poems all in their time had considerable impact. It was for the twenty years after they took ownership of Sissinghurst in 1930 that she and her husband Harold Nicolson concentrated on making it the place dedicated to beauty that we see today. The fact that we may still read almost all her books, for most are still in print, is a remarkable testament to an extraordinary talent.
They had both been in the habit for many years of marking passages which particularly pleased them, and of scribbling an index for reference at the end of each book. This month we walk through the poetry that inspired them both and see a small part of the lifetime literary tastes of the two people who shaped Sissinghurst Castle Garden.