In their lifetime Vita Sack-Ville West and Harold
Nicolson designed and constructed three gardens. The first was at Cospoli,
Constantinople, the second Long Barn, Sevenoaks Weald, and the third,
Sissinghurst. The garden at Cospoli was the first attempt Vita made at
gardening, and it was here that she discovered her love of plants. Her first
foray into gardening was short lived; Harold and Vita bought the property in
Cospoli in November 1923, while Harold was working as Third Secretary at the
British Embassy. Unfortunately they had to leave their garden behind in the
summer of 1914 when war broke out and Harold was recalled to London. Memories
of Cospoli still linger on today at Sissinghurst with two items Vita and Harold
brought back with them, the Greek plaque on the wall to the entrance of the
white garden, and the marble bowl resting on three lions in the herb garden.
There was one connecting feature with all three gardens, in each case they were
utterly neglected and in the case of Sissinghurst almost non-existent.
In 1915 while renting a property in London since their
return from overseas, Vita and Harold started looking for a country house. In
March of that year they bought Long Barn, situated on the edge of a rural
village named Weald, Kent. Long Barn, which they bought for £2,500 was within
walking distance of Vita’s ancestral home, Knole. Vita always loved Long barn
and rather understatedly said: ‘it will do very well indeed’. If the garden at
Cospoli was where Vita first cut her gardening teeth then undoubtedly Long Barn
was where she served her gardening apprenticeship. Her garden notebooks,
written in the early Long Barn years show an almost complete lack of basic
horticultural knowledge, but both Vita and Harold learnt quickly from their
mistakes and very soon Vita built up an impressive knowledge and understanding
of plants and gardening.
View from the main lawn. The original cottage is seen face
on while the reconstructed barn to enlarge the house can be seen on end.
Long Barn was in a dreadful state when they bought it;
the cottage was in extremely poor condition and was fast approaching
dereliction. The garden was on a steep slope, full of rubble, weeds and general
rubbish. At the bottom was a field and in this a ruined barn which was taken
down, material from it subsequently used to make the new wing, doubling the
size of the house. The garden soon started to take shape; after the rubbish was
cleared a terrace was built with retaining walls to lessen the slope around the
house, and too provide the top platform; steps led to a lawn. The garden
followed to a degree, the philosophy of the Arts & Crafts movement with
some formality in the layout along with garden compartments or rooms, planting being
used to soften any hard lines. The Arts and Crafts movement, which purists believe
ended with the death of Morris in1896, or a more commonly held thought 1914,
with the Great War, also advocated that the garden be integral to the house,
displaying a natural unity. Vita’s planting at Long Barn took this to the extreme;
the walls of the house were covered with many climbing plants such as Roses,
honeysuckle and Clematis. Plants grew from every crack and crevice in the
paving, right up to the house, and on the terraces; scent and colour reigned
supreme. Harold was the garden designer
and displayed a natural talent, the layout of Long Barn totally down to his
skill but Vita provided the planting design in the Arts and Crafts style.
The design of Long Barn was influenced by William
Robinson who Vita knew and respected. The idea of elements of formality in a
garden but softened by planting being key to Robinsonian philosophy, this
clearly seen at Gravetye Manor, his home. Vita also visited Munstead Wood and
met Gertrude Jekyll in 1917; she went along with Edwin Lutyens and her mother.
But the full influence of Jekyll, Robinson and of course Lawrence Johnston’s
garden at Hidcote was not felt until Vita and Harold bought Sissinghurst. Long
Barn was really the nursery for future designs and ideas. Vita and Harold were
good friends with Lutyens another influence in their garden; in 1925 he
designed the Dutch garden while staying at Long Barn. Apart from the raised
beds nothing remains of Lutyens work on this section of the garden.
Vita knew the type of plants that she would use at Long
Barn; these were later carried through to Sissinghurst. The garden was packed
full of flowering plants, Vita enjoyed roses, and climbers, and the garden was
planted using many of them. Interestingly they made the first attempts at one
colour designs and planted up a yellow and white border, later of course this
idea was taken to Sissinghurst. Harold loved nut trees; there was a nuttery in
the garden along with a small apple garden. Vita planted a line of yews which
can still be seen today while Harold planted an avenue of poplars. One plant
that both loved was the iris, their collection grew and grew.
In a letter to Harold, Vita describes how the garden was
looking, by this time they had been at Long Barn around nine years: ‘Your new
poplar walk is alive. The wood is a blaze of primulas, anemones, tulips and
irises. The turf is perfect…..The roses are beautifully pruned; the lilac is
smothered in blossom. Your honeysuckle by the big room door also’.
If ever a garden can be classed as influential then that
garden is Long Barn. The obvious part that it played with the subsequent
development of Sissinghurst cannot be understated; it was the trial ground for
ideas and developments that went on to shape people’s ideas and perceptions of
the classic English garden. The idea of one colour gardens first conceived by
Jekyll was experimented with at Long barn and from that probably the most
famous garden, the white garden at Sissinghurst evolved. The garden at Long
Barn is looked after today in a way Vita would approve of and remains true to
her ethos. Even more so than Sissinghurst but that has more to do with Long
Barn remaining a private family home and not having up to 200,000 visitors
through its gates each year.
Long Barn opens for
charity events but is not open to the public. For information contact Stephen on www.gardenhistoryexpert.co.uk
