Many people have also criticized the general tidiness if the garden since the National Trust took it over. To a certain extent, this tidiness is necessary; in her book "Sissinghurst: the Making of a Garden", Anne Scott-James wrote that "Two or three people can duck under a rose bush which meets another rose bush across a path, but a thousand people cannot do so without a bumping of heads. Two or three people can pick their way across a broken piece of crazy paving, but when there is a stream of visitors, someone is sure to twist an ankle." Most people seem to understand the need for the repaving of the paths which took place in the early 1970s. The increasing number of visitors were just too hard on the grass paths and some of the paved paths had changes in level which required that visitors watch where they were walking. Vita would have loved the new York stone paths which replaced her concrete pavers; she would have had stone paths the first place if she could have afforded them. The clipping of the four Irish yews in the center of the Cottage Garden is much more controversial, Vita preferred them as shaggy pillars and the National Trust turned them into topiary. The result is a considerable change in the atmosphere that Vita created, but her garden has survived. I am glad that cousin Eddie was wrong.
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