The photo above shows the view from the Entry Courtyard, looking through the tower's archway towards the Tower Garden . 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.
The Tower Lawn, which is also known as the Lower Courtyard, is the most simple of Sissinghurst's garden rooms. While the Entry Courtyard has the purple border as its showpiece, the Tower Lawn lacks a horticultural focal point; this is not to say that it lacks trees and flowers, just that lawn is the dominant feature.
To visitors who focus on flowers, the Tower Lawn may seem rather uninteresting, but from a design point of view, it is quite successful. Harold put a great deal of thought into unifying the garden through axial planning, and the Tower Lawn is a very important part of his design.
The photograph at the top of this article shows the first glimpse of the Tower Lawn that a visitor sees when looking through the tower's archway from the Entry Courtyard. That white object framed by the opening in the yew hedge is a statue of the god Bacchus which terminates the long axis though the Tower Lawn and the Orchard, to the southeastern corner of the Medieval moat. The photo below shows the view of this axis from the top of the tower. At the bottom of the photo is the double yew hedge on either side of a narrow walk, above it is the orchard, with a broad mown path leading to the statue of Bacchus. The building on the right is the South Cottage.
The view through the archway sets the tone for the Tower Lawn, which functions as a hub for the garden's two main axes; the second axis being the line between the doorways of the White Garden and the Rose Garden.
The photograph above shows the White Garden next to the Priest's House, please notice the walk which leads from the arch at the bottom of the photo under the large rose arbor to a doorway at the top of the garden. This line (or axis) leads across the Tower Lawn to the Rose Garden, which is shown in the photograph below.
