Sissinghurst Castle is a jewel in the English countryside. Its chief attraction is its celebrated garden, designed in the 1930's by the poet Vita Sackville-West. As a boy Adam Nicolson, Sackville-West's grandson, spent his days romping through Sissinghurst's woods, streams, and fields. In his new book, Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History, he returns to the place of his bucolic youth and finds that the estate, now operated by Britain's National Trust, has lost something precious. It is still unquestionably a place of calm and beauty but, he asks, where is the working farm, the orchards, the cattle and the sheep? "Sissinghurst had to be restored to a fullness of life," Nicolson writes, "but how to do it? That was the task and the question."
Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History is a personal biography of a place and time and an inspiring story of one man's quest to return a remarkable landscape to its best, most useful purpose.
Adam Nicolson will talk about his new book and sign copies after the event. All are welcome.
