Sissinghurst Castle - Part Thirteen

The photo above shows the Herb Garden's 'chamomile seat'. This was created by the Nicolson's chauffeur, Jack Cooper, using stone fragments which were found in the ruins of Sissinghurst Castle. This isn't as eccentric as you might think; planted seats were very popular in Medieval gardens. 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.

Vita's interest in herbs was rooted in her romantic love of the past. For Vita, Sissinghurst Castle was a refuge from a modern world where she felt out of place. Sissinghurst's Herb Garden was never intended to be a place where common herbs were grown for cooking; if that had been Vita's intent, the garden next to the Priest's House would have been an herb garden, since Sissinghurst's dining room and Kitchen were located in the Priest's House. By locating her herb garden at the opposite end of the moat from the Priest's House, Vita wasn't trying to make life harden for her cook, Mrs. Staples. In fact, some herbs for the kitchen were grown near the Priest's House. Vita's collection of over 60 herbs included many plants which had once been used as medicine and there was no need to grow them near the kitchen. Their appeal was mainly historical.

Many herbs look rather weedy, especially when grown next to highly bred flowers. Most herbs are actually wildflowers and they tend to give a garden a look of unkempt wildness. By displaying her collection of herbs in their own hedged enclosure, Vita created a garden which is much more about foliage and scent than flowers. The garden's formal structure makes it clear that this is a garden of cultivated plants, as does the high level of maintenance.

The yew hedges that enclose the Herb Garden were planted in 1934, but only a few herbs were grown there until after World War Two. This isn't surprising, since it takes quite a few years for a yew hedge to look like much. In 1938, when the garden was first planted, it was divided into four parts with three kinds of herbs in each of the four beds. The Herb Garden was neglected during the war, and by 1946 it was filled with weeds. After clearing the weeds, the ground was purified by planting a crop of potatoes and a new garden was created within the yew hedges (I didn't know that potatoes would have such an effect; this information is from "Gardening at Sissinghurst". by Tony Lord).

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