Kent is one of England’s
loveliest counties once you escape London’s unremitting urban sprawl, her
industrialised North and move on to the famous orchards, hop gardens and great
houses. Proximity to London is a powerful attraction and I describe the huge
historic house of Knole, near
Sevenoaks, and Sissinghurst near
Cranbrook, chiefly notable for its garden, both properties being connected by
the striking figure of writer Vita Sackville-West.
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| Knole Frontage |
Although there has been a house
on the site from time immemorial, the Knole
we now see was built by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1456
when he bought the estate and his death in 1486. Originally in the Tudor and
Elizabethan style, it was remodelled by the first Earl of Dorset 1603-08 and
greatly embellished by Charles, the 6th Earl from 1689 and 1697, who
was able to procure important pieces from royal palaces.
The house was gifted by Queen
Elizabeth to her cousin Thomas Sackville in 1566, who took full possession in
1603 and it remained in the ownership of the Sackville family until 1946, when
it was donated to The National Trust. From 1603 there were 7 Earls of Dorset, 4
Dukes until the title died out, to be followed by 4 Lord Sackvilles owning
Knole, using the surname Sackville-West. The Sackvilles still occupied part of
the house – we are now on the 7th Baron.
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| Charles, 6th Earl of Dorset,lavish patron of Knole |
Knole is said to have been built
as a “calendar house” with 365 rooms, 7 courtyards, 52 staircases and 12
entrances. With its gables, chimneys, battlements and pinnacles it has a
decidedly Tudor look but its unique treasure is its collection of rare 17th
century furniture and textiles, from chairs of state and footstools from the
time of James I and Charles I to late Stuart or William and Mary masterpieces
by the carver, Thomas Roberts, the cabinet maker, Gerrit Jensen, and the
upholsterer Francis Lapiere. The celebrated “Knole Settee” with adjustable sides, prototype of many modern
sofas, probably dating from Charles II’s reign, was a formal piece used by the
monarch or his queen to receive visitors in the state dressing room. It is
today in the sumptuous Venetian Ambassador’s Room.
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| The original 17th century Knole Settee |
Entering by the Great Hall,
mainly used by the servants, you climb the Great Staircase with its allegorical
grisailles, on to the Brown Gallery
with its fine furniture and English and Dutch paintings.
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| The Great staircase |
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| Prince Charles visits the Brown Gallery |
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| The Ballroom |
Bedroom after Gallery follow, impossible for me adequately
to cover, until we get to the Ballroom, furnished with 18th and 19th
century pieces but notable for its magnificent 1607 marble and alabaster
chimney-piece and overmantel by Cornelius Cuer, reckoned to be among the finest
works of Renaissance sculpture in England. Eventually we get to the Cartoon
Gallery with 6 copies of Raphael’s sketches by Mytens presented by Charles I to
a relative in the 1620s but brought to Knole in 1701.
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| The Cartoon Gallery at Knole |
With 26 acres of Gardens and 1,000 acres of Park, stocked
with deer, it is hardly surprising that passionate Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) adored Knole where she was born and
reared. She was the daughter and only child of the 3rd Lord
Sackville and was eternally indignant that, as a woman, she was then not able
to inherit. When her father died in 1928, Knole passed to her uncle, who in
turn donated it to the National Trust in 1946. Signing a document relinquishing
any claim to Knole she wrote: “the signing... nearly broke my heart, putting my
signature to what I regarded as a betrayal of all the tradition of my ancestors
and the house I loved."
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| Vita Sackville-West |
Vita was a flamboyant lady, who had married in 1913 the
aristocratic diplomat, and later writer and politician, Harold Nicolson. Their
marriage was a remarkably happy one (they wrote to each other every day) but it
was peculiar as both partners were bisexual. Vita and Harold had two talented
sons but Vita much preferred the ladies and Harold struggled to suppress his
strong preference for young men. Both were mutually tolerant and they had an
“open” marriage, well described by their son Nigel in his perhaps unfilial 1973
biography Portrait of a Marriage.
Vita was free to indulge her preferences but male homosexual activity (termed “gross
indecency”) had been criminalised by the notorious Labouchère’s Amendment of
1886, so Harold had to be discreet; this law was only repealed in 1967.
Vita was a prolific poet and novelist, though of only
moderate talent, inhabiting the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group of
intellectuals. She had an affair with Virginia Woolf in the late 1920s, but the
passion of her life was Violet Trefusis, daughter of Alice Keppel, mistress of
Edward VII. Violet could be tiresomely demanding and Vita had many other liaisons,
including a fling with gardening expert Alvide Lees-Milne, wife of James.
Harold Nicolson
(1886-1968) was a busy diplomat, attending Versailles in 1919 in a junior
capacity and then being posted to Persia, Geneva and elsewhere. He became a
journalist, briefly followed Oswald Mosley when he formed the New Party in 1931,
though he immediately broke from Mosley when he embraced Fascism. Nicolson
entered parliament in 1935 as a National Labour member, supported Churchill
against appeasement, was a censor during the War and lost his seat in 1945. He
had a very wide acquaintance in the higher reaches of politics and society,
making his Diaries a fascinating
read. He wrote a dutiful biography of George V and many other books on
literature and on the issues of the day. His male lovers included critic
Raymond Mortimer, with whom he had a long relationship, and James Lees-Milne,
who ran the National Trust Country Houses scheme in the 1940s and whose Diaries also attracted a cult following.
Vita and Harold, this unconventional but loving couple, were
looking for a new home in 1930 and came upon the ruined remains of Sissinghurst Castle in the Weald of
Kent, near Cranbrook. A house had occupied the site since the 12th
century but the Baker family built a large Elizabethan mansion there in about
1560. Backing the wrong side during the Civil War, the Bakers lost their
fortune and the castle fell into steady disrepair. It was leased to the
government as a prison for French captives during the 7 Years’ War until 1763
(historian Edward Gibbon was one of the officers in charge). The greater part
of the Elizabethan mansion was pulled down in about 1800, it became the parish
workhouse and went through a succession of owners until it was rescued by
Harold and Vita in 1930.
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| Sissinghurst: The Tower and Gardens |
Restoring Sissinghurst and creating a Garden was a
challenging task but Harold and Vita threw themselves into the project with
energy and intelligence. The general plan was for “the strictest formality of
design” (Harold’s forte) with “the
maximum informality in planting” (Vita’s department). Vita wrote: “It was a
romantic place, and it must be romantically treated, very English, very Kentish
yet something foreign about it……that was why figs and vines and roses looked so
right, so inevitable. I planted them recklessly”. Harold devised “rooms” where
certain colours predominated; he had a natural taste for symmetry and a talent
for creating an arresting vista. Vita
insisted on seasonal features, a spring garden, an early summer garden, a late
summer garden and an autumn garden. In all events they succeeded in creating
one of the loveliest gardens in England.
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| The Formal Garden |
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| The Lime Walk |
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| A corner of the Garden |
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| Harold and Vita in 1955 |
Vita lived in the Tower, while Harold wrote in the surviving
South Cottage. The children were first in the Priest’s house then moved to the
Entrance range – all in all an inconvenient and rather chilly house. But the
family loved it and Vita became very well known for her gardening column in The Observer.
Sissinghurst was donated to The National Trust in 1968 together with 270
acres of surrounding farmland.
In their unusually varied lives, Vita and Harold created at
Sissinghurst a remarkable Garden, by any standard a highly civilised Legacy.
SMD
26.10.13
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
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