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Sissinghurst
Sissinghurst is a small village in the borough of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England. Originally called ''Milkhouse Street'' (also referred to as ''Mylkehouse''), Sissinghurst changed its name in the 1850s, possibly to avoid association with the smuggling and cockfighting activities of the Hawkhurst Gang. It is in the civil parish of Cranbrook and Sissinghurst. The nearest railway station is at Staplehurst. Geography Sissinghurst is situated with Cranbrook to the south, Goudhurst to the west, Tenterden to the east and Staplehurst to the north. It sits just back from the A229 which goes from Rochester to Hawkhurst. History Sissinghurst's history is similar to that of nearby Cranbrook. Iron Age working tools have been found and the village was for centuries a meeting and resting place for people travelling towards the south coast. Sissinghurst Castle Garden Sissinghurst's garden was created in the 1930s by Vita Sackville-West, poet and gardening writer, and her husband Harold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sissinghurst Castle Garden
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent in England, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...'s register of historic parks and gardens. It was bought by Sackville-West in 1930, and over the next thirty years, working with, and later succeeded by, a series of notable head gardeners, she and Nicolson transformed a farmstead of "squalor and slovenly disorder" into one of the world's most influential gardens. Following Sackville-West's death in 1962, the estate was donated to the National Trust. It is one of the Trust's most popular properties, with nearl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vita Sackville-West
Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer. Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as well as a prolific letter writer and diarist. She published more than a dozen collections of poetry and 13 novels during her lifetime. She was twice awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Imaginative Literature: in 1927 for her pastoral epic, '' The Land'', and in 1933 for her ''Collected Poems''. She was the inspiration for the protagonist of '' Orlando: A Biography'', by her friend and lover Virginia Woolf. She wrote a column in ''The Observer'' from 1946 to 1961 and is remembered for the celebrated garden at Sissinghurst created with her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson. Biography Antecedents Victoria Mary Sackville-West — called Vita, to distinguish her from her mother — was born on 9 March 1892 at Knole, the Kent home of Sackville-West' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pamela Schwerdt
Pamela Schwerdt was the joint head gardener at Sissinghurst Castle Garden from 1959 to 1990, and a pioneering horticulturalist. Early life and education Pamela Schwerdt was born on 5 April 1931 in Surrey, the granddaughter of Edith Vere Dent, who founded the Wild Flower Society in 1886, and the daughter of Violet Schwerdt MBE, who was subsequently editor of the society newsletter following on from her mother and sister. From 1936 the family lived in Newfoundland then Nova Scotia, returning to England in 1945, where Pam attended Lady Eleanor Holles School in Hampton, Middlesex. In 1951, aged 18, she joined Waterperry School of Horticulture for Ladies, at Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire. She was attracted by the fact that the clothes list included "two pairs of gumboots and a mackintosh" rather than the "cap and gown" required at Wye College, and this reflected the practical nature of the training offered by the school's founder, Beatrix Havergal. Whilst there she formed a c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cranbrook, Kent
Cranbrook is a town in the civil parish of Cranbrook and Sissinghurst, in the Weald of Kent in South East England. It lies roughly half-way between Maidstone and Hastings, about southeast of central London. The smaller settlements of Sissinghurst, Swattenden, Colliers Green and Hartley lie within the civil parish. The population of the parish was 6,717 in 2011. History The place name Cranbrook derives from Old English ''cran bric'', meaning Crane Marsh, marshy ground frequented by cranes (although more probably herons). Spelling of the place name has evolved over the centuries from ''Cranebroca'' (c. 1100); by 1226 it was recorded as ''Cranebroc'', then Cranebrok. By 1610 the name had become Cranbrooke, which evolved into the current spelling. There is evidence of early activity here in the Roman period at the former Little Farningham Farm where a substantial iron working site was investigated in the 1950s,in 2000 the site was the subject of a Kent Archaeological Soci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Nicolson
Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, and gardener. His wife was the writer Vita Sackville-West. Early life Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of diplomat Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He spent his boyhood in various places throughout Europe and the Near East and followed his father's frequent postings, including in St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Madrid, Sofia, and Tangier. He was educated at The Grange School in Folkestone, Kent, followed by Wellington College. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1909 with a third class degree. Nicolson entered the Foreign Office that same year, after passing second in the competitive exams for the Diplomatic Service and Civil Service. Diplomatic career In 1909, Nicolson joined HM Diplomatic Service. He served as attaché at Madrid from February to September 1911 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Drummond
Major-General Laurence George Drummond (13 March 1861 – 20 May 1946) was a British Army general officer. Drummond saw active service in the Bechuanaland Expedition (1884–1885), the Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War (1895–1896), the Soudan Expedition, the Second Boer War, and the Great War of 1914–1918, and retired to Kent in 1920 to become a magistrate and a keen gardener. Life The only son of Admiral Sir James Robert Drummond, a younger son of Viscount Strathallan, by his marriage to Catherine Frances Elliot,Charles Mosley, ed., ''Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage'', 107th edition, volume 1 (Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003), p. 117 Drummond was educated at Eton College and from 1874 to 1877 was second Page of Honour to Queen Victoria.'Major-Gen. L. G. Drummond' (obituary) in ''The Times'' (London), issue 50457 dated 21 May 1946, p. 6 After training at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Coldstream Guards on 13 August ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Harold Nicolson
Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, and gardener. His wife was the writer Vita Sackville-West. Early life Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of diplomat Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock. He spent his boyhood in various places throughout Europe and the Near East and followed his father's frequent postings, including in St. Petersburg, Constantinople, Madrid, Sofia, and Tangier. He was educated at The Grange School in Folkestone, Kent, followed by Wellington College. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1909 with a third class degree. Nicolson entered the Foreign Office that same year, after passing second in the competitive exams for the Diplomatic Service and Civil Service. Diplomatic career In 1909, Nicolson joined HM Diplomatic Service. He served as attaché at Madrid from February to September 1911 an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Baker (chronicler)
Sir Richard Baker (c. 1568 – 18 February 1645) was a politician, historian and religious writer. He was the English author of the ''Chronicle of the Kings of England'' and other works. Family Richard Baker, born about 1568 at Sissinghurst, Kent, was the elder son of John Baker (by 1531–1604/6), John Baker and Katherine Scott, the daughter of Sir Reginald Scott (d. 16 December 1554) of Scot's Hall near Ashford, Kent, and Emeline Kempe, the daughter of Sir William Kempe of Olantigh, by Eleanor, daughter of Sir Robert Browne. Richard Baker's father, John Baker (by 1531–1604/6), John Baker, was the second son of John Baker (died 1558), Sir John Baker, the first Chancellor of the Exchequer. Richard Baker had a younger brother named Thomas, who is doubtless the ancestor of William Baker of Lismacue House in County Tipperary, Ireland. Life Richard Baker entered Hertford College, Oxford, Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without taking a degree, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maidstone And The Weald (UK Parliament Constituency)
Maidstone and The Weald is a constituency in Kent represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Helen Grant of the Conservative Party. She succeeded fellow party member Ann Widdecombe, who had held the seat since it was created for the 1997 general election. Boundaries 1997–2010: The Borough of Maidstone wards of Allington, Barming, Boughton Monchelsea, Bridge, Coxheath, East, Farleigh, Heath, High Street, Loose, Marden, North, South, Staplehurst, Yalding; and the Borough of Tunbridge Wells wards of Benenden, Cranbrook, Frittenden and Sissinghurst, Hawkhurst, Sandhurst. 2010–present: The Borough of Maidstone wards of Allington, Barming, Bridge, Coxheath and Hunton, East, Fant, Heath, High Street, Loose, Marden and Yalding, North, South, Staplehurst; and the Borough of Tunbridge Wells wards of Benenden and Cranbrook, Frittenden and Sissinghurst. The largest settlement is the central county town of Maidstone in Kent in southeast England with smaller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Hislop
Ian David Hislop (born 13 July 1960) is a British journalist, satirist, writer, broadcaster, and editor of the magazine ''Private Eye''. He has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes and has been a team captain on the BBC quiz show '' Have I Got News for You'' since the programme's inception in 1990. Family and personal life Hislop was born on 13 July 1960 in Mumbles, Swansea, to a Scottish father, David Hislop, from Ayrshire, and a Channel Islander mother born in Jersey, Helen Rosemarie Hislop (née Beddows), who left for Wales in her late teens. Hislop did not know his grandparents. His paternal grandfather, David Murdoch Hislop, died just before he was born. His maternal grandfather, William Beddows, was originally from Lancashire. When he was five months old, Hislop's family began to travel around the world because of his father's job as a civil engineer. During his infant years, Hislop lived in Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Hong Kong. While in Saudi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Lee (historian)
Christopher Lee RD (13 October 1941 – 14 February 2021) was a British writer, historian and broadcaster, best known for writing the radio documentary series '' This Sceptred Isle'' for the BBC read by Anna Massey and directed by Pete Atkin. Career Lee's career began after expulsion from school and going to sea in an old tramp steamer. In his twenties he restarted education, reading history at London University. He later joined the BBC as a defence and foreign affairs correspondent and was posted to Moscow and the Middle East. Leaving his career in journalism for academia, Lee was the first Quatercentenary Fellow in Contemporary History and Gomes Lecturer in Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He went on to research the history of ideas at Birkbeck College in the University of London. Christopher Lee was recruited into the Royal Navy's Joint Intelligence Reserve Branch and in the 1970s completed a study of the Order of Battle of the Soviet Northern Fleet and its command structure. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Staplehurst Railway Station
Staplehurst railway station is on the South Eastern Main Line in England, serving the village of Staplehurst, Kent. It is down the line from London Charing Cross . The station and all trains that serve the station are operated by Southeastern. The station opened in August 1842. It is well known for the Staplehurst rail crash on 9 June 1865 on which Charles Dickens was a passenger. History The station was opened by the South Eastern Railway on 31 August 1842, when the line was extended from to . The platforms were widened in 1889. A footbridge over the platforms was installed in 1961, in preparation for the electrification of the South Eastern Main Line. A coal depot was established at Staplehurst in September 1965. All goods facilities were withdrawn on 4 October 1971. Facilities Staplehurst is located in the north of the urban area on the A229 road which runs from Chatham to Hastings via Maidstone. The ticket office is located on the London-bound platform 1. A passenger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
