Sissinghurst Castle - Part Five

The photo above shows the enclosed garden next to the Priest's House as seen from the tower. The photographs in this article were taken by Dave Parker and may not be reproduced in any way without his permission; his website features many beautiful photographs of Sissinghurst Castle.

Many people think that the garden next to the Priest's House was the last of Sissinghurst's gardens to be created. That is because the garden was planted as a white garden in 1950, but this was actually one of the earliest areas at Sissinghurst to be developed into a garden. In 1931, a year before the Priest's House was restored to house the Nicolson's kitchen and dining room, the garden was already laid out and planted with roses.

While the garden was replanted in 1950, it retains its original layout. The rectangular garden is divided into four equal parts by two intersecting paths, with a square at the point where the two paths cross. This is the typical design of an Islamic garden, reflecting Harold and Vita's love for the gardens of Persia. Each of the four rectangular sections is divided in half by paths that run from east to west. The four beds in the northern half of of the garden, next to the Priest's House, are subdivided by crossing paths, creating 16 small planting beds. In the northwest corner of the garden there is a dining table shaded by a rose arbor that is supported by broken columns. The Nicolsons called this arbor the "Erectheum" and this is where the family dined whenever the weather allowed. The entire garden should be thought of as an outdoor dining room.

The photograph below is an enlargement of the right half of the photo at the top of this page, showing the garden in Spring. In the center of the photo is a rose arbor, which covers the square crossing at the center of the garden. Above it are the 16 small beds and below it are the four large beds of the garden's southern half. The Erectheum is in the upper left corner of the photograph.