Sissinghurst Castle - Part Fifteen

The photo above shows the bench and the small terrace in the curve of the Powis Wall at the western end of the Rose 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.

My previous article was mainly about the Rose Garden's Rondel and Long Border. I couldn't put everything that I wanted to say into that article without going over a thousand words, so I decided to devote a second article to the Rose Garden.

The Rondel and Long Border are important design elements in the Rose Garden, but I agree with Jane Brown when she wrote in her book The English Garden in Our Time that the semicircular wall at the west end of the Rose Garden raises the garden "to the status of a garden room of the finest pedigree." She thinks that the Nicolsons and the wall's designer, the architect Albert Powys, "must have realized that they were recreating the parterre of the Villa Gamberaia in the textures of a colder climate." This wall, which has been called the Powis Wall ever since its construction in 1935, does transform the awkward shape of the old Tudor garden into a reflection of the best Italian gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Nicolsons employed Powys as their architect from 1932 until his death in 1936. Vita often clashed with him because she felt that his designs were too elaborate for the rustic atmosphere of her ruined castle. She strongly opposed this wall for that reason, but once it was finished, she had to admit that it was "right". Actually while the wall's design is beautiful, the wall itself is rather ugly. The bricks were chosen carefully to harmonize with the mellow colors of Sissinghurst's 16th century buildings but the pointing is more heavy than that of the Tudor walls and it is most attractive in late summer, when the bricks are covered the the purple Clematis 'Perle d'Azur'.

The Powis Wall terminates the Rose Garden's central walk, with three steps leading up to a small terrace with the wall's curve. The bench in the photo at the top of this article is located at the center of this terrace and provides the perfect focal point for the view of the garden from within the Rondel.

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