We visited Sissinghurst in June last year. The time when the delicate pastels of Spring transform into the brilliance of summer. Owned by the National Trust (so free entrance for members), lying in a triangle between Tunbridge Wells, Maidstone and Ashford.
It's almost impossible to read anything about Sissinghurst without mention of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, who nowadays are primarily famous for creating this world famous garden. Much like the film Elvira Madigan being largely famous for featuring the much more famous Andante from Mozart's 21st piano concerto.
It was the first time I have been down the A21, and the first time I have noticed a strange thing - that on the Greater London-Kent border, the A21 is also the M25. So one minute you're ambling down an A road albeit a motorway standard trunk, and the next moment you're on Britain's busiest motorway, with very little warning or preparation, confronted by the most aggressive drivers in existence.
Also, it was the first time I properly realised that Kent is hilly. For some reason I had thought that Kent was flat, but it's dominated by the Weald Forest Ridge, ancient heathland forests that remind one that Kent is more than just the hinterland of London. Off the trunk road, along the typical rural winding single carriageway A road, you notice Oast houses or modern buildings that mimic that vernacular style. Sissinghurst is poorly signed. A few days before writing this post I repeated a good deal of the journey, to Hastings, and didn't see one brown sign for the place, although I saw plenty for equal and lesser visitor attractions. Even in the village of Sissinghurst, it's not entirely clear where the castle is.
Of course, the main reason to visit a world famous garden is to look at the beautiful flowers and how the garden is laid out. The garden is laid out in a series of 'rooms' which apparently was quite innovative when they initially designed it, but seems quite commonplace to me now. The formal gardens are quite small and you can see everything you want to in less than hour.
The car park was very full, with the overflow in operation, and I expected the gardens to be heaving on this gloriously sunny, bright warm day. Although busy, they were not unbearably so. Perhaps some people were inside in the exhibition about people I'm not frightfully interested in. I suspected it would be quite sanitised, anyway, because, apart from creating Sissinghurst, their main claim to fame was an open marriage and Vita's affair with Virginia Woolf.
It seems people go to NT places mainly to eat. Quite perplexing! We'd brought a packed lunch, and stopped at a Wild Bean Café petrol station for much better coffee than the National Trust could ever offer.
Trips to these visitor attractions are such a great opportunity for observing the bizarre behaviours of the middle-middle classes. That started in the pebbles-in-dusty-gravel car park, where people sat on deckchairs to eat their sandwiches, eschewing the large green central and free picnic area provided for visitors.
On arrival, you are given a free leaflet with a map of the grounds, both the formal gardens and a choice of walks around the Estate - a basic one mile walk, which you could extend to three miles. Hardly taxing for most people, I would have thought. Walking to the lake we were overtaken by one couple, and encountered another couple on their way back. Beside the lake, I saw two more couples and a lone dog-walker. And that was it!
A heaving car park, busy gardens, and a whole eleven people venturing beyond the boundaries of safe, curated, structured. The rest compliant and biddable, doing what they imagine an Authority is telling them to do, scared of their own shadows and of the Great Uncertainty in the fields and copses of South East England.
One shouldn't generalise, of course, but it struck me that the fittest most robust person I saw was a woman in her fifties, walking with a stick, looking perhaps as if she was awaiting a hip replacement. One can sympathise as to why she and her friend didn't venture far, but she looked more lively than just about everyone else, who mainly looked dead from the neck down (that's not ageist - many of them were younger than me and hip woman, and most of them were younger than Jimmy. This wasn't a Pensioners' Special,as you would normally expect on weekdays at gardens).
I expect some of them sincerely believe that their slow shuffling walk around the gardens is moderate exercise, and pride themselves on how they get out and stay active. I was also surprised - shocked even - by the absence of Mindfulness. I would not be surprised if many of those people have spent money and time in Mindfulness classes and apps, but spectacularly failed to apply the lessons. Snippets of conversations overheard, strands of life - children issues, conspicuous consumption, fashion, holidays, anything but the bloody plants in the flaming garden!
A group stood in the herb garden, at a junction of two major paths, effectively blocking access to a quarter of the garden, nattering inanely about owt and nowt. When I said 'excuse me', they barely moved, and grudgingly, and I had to twice squeeze past them. No one else ventured into that quarter of the garden, because of fear of these Ghastlies who lacked awareness of their surroundings and other people. "Some people! So rude!" I exclaimed to Jimmy, slightly louder than necessary!
The walk down to the lake was almost the quintessential summer's day, and so tranquil. Only us and nine other people, all of them wanting solitude and quiet. Grass gone to seed, buttercups in the meadows, lambs gambolling in the afternoon sun, and this all to ourselves.
On the way back I noticed two things. Just near the long term roadworks outside Tonbridge, I watched a police van slowly reverse into another vehicle. No damage done, but lots of drama as they manoeuvred to park and exchange details. On the south circular, I spotted a woman probably coming home form work, wearing black woolly tights, a reminder of being back in London, where people have appalling body thermostats and lack the ability to regulate temperature.
A really nice day out. I haven't written much about the plants, but I hope you enjoy the photographs, just a a selection from many more which are in my Sussex photo album. I have tried to identify at least some of the flowers, but it's partly guesswork. If you know better, please say so in the comments.
