The New York Times special fall travel section of Oct. 6 asks the question, “Can a modern family make a home among hordes of tourists under the watchful eye of England’s National Trust?”
Adam Nicolson, provides an answer. He discusses Sissinghurst in Kent, the gardens lovingly created by his grandparents, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, and how things went for him, his wife and their two daughters when they moved in to the National Trust “home” in 2004.
It did not go well. The new setup was something of a shock. We had moved into a museum: our dogs not allowed in the garden, being shouted at by gardeners if they did wander in; our children not allowed near the greenhouses; our cars to be parked in exactly prealigned ways; instructions that we were not to have parties on the weekends – Adam Nicolson in the NYT.
Nicolson writes about the struggle to create the “placeness” inherent in the Sissinghurst of his childhood, along with the “fug of beauty” that made the site so memorable.
Related articles
- Book on Monk’s House garden shares the beauty (bloggingwoolf.wordpress.com)
- Sissinghurst (mapsworldwideblog.com)
- Why Vita Sackville-West never pruned her roses (telegraph.co.uk)
- Ways with Words 2010: The Ghosts of Vita Sackville-West (3quarksdaily.com)
- Enchanted gardens (telegraphindia.com)
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