Dennison's book
[Lady with a Red Hat, by William Strang, 1918]
Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962), writer and gardener, grew up at Knole, a huge, grand Kentish house that looked medieval. Knole is now in the care of the National Trust. Sackville-West was very attached to it, but it could go only to a male heir. As a result, she became a restless woman who seemed to be seeking a way to ease her loss.
Here father was 3rd Baron Lionel Edward Sackville-West. In 1910, when Vita was 18, her mother Victoria Sackville-West (1862–1936) married first cousin, Lord Lionel Sackville, and launched a legal claim to the estate. 3 years later another battle followed when the family of Victoria’s late lover, Sir John Murray Scott, challenged the will against Lady Sackville-West. Victoria triumphed on both occasions, but the public notoriety was harsh.
Vita happily married journalist-diplomat Sir Harold Nicolson in 1913, but beneath Vita’s passion, her pain continued. Her first garden was at Long Barn near Sevenoaks, Kent where they stayed from 1915-30. We will come back to gardening momentarily.
Vita’s sexual partners began in 1917 with Violet Keppel Trefusis, daughter of Edward VII’s mistress. In Apr 1918, Vita and Violet travelled together on holidays, leaving their husbands and children at home. Along the way they added to their endless list of partners which included Hilda Matheson from the BBC; and Vita’s sister-in-law Gwen St Aubyn. Vita and her lover Virginia Woolf had a passionate affair (1925-9) that didn’t end badly. Rather when the sexual passions cooled, a deep relationship grew.
1913, Wiki
Harold Nicolson’s drinking companions included Balfour, Curzon, Ramsay MacDonald, Jan Smuts, Churchill, Ernest Bevin, Eden, Sassoon and Asquith. But his lovers tended to be more literary and academic men.
Vita’s output was notable. In the early 1920s she wrote a Memoir of her relationships, seeking explain both why she had chosen to stay with Nicolson, and why she’d fallen in love with Violet Keppel. Her reputation rested on her poem The Land (1926), novel All Passion Spent (1931) and my favourite Hogarth Press novel The Edwardians (1930).
The excitement waned dramatically after Vita, Harold and their two sons moved to Sissinghurst Castle in 1930. Although Sissinghurst was derelict, they bought the castle and its farm and began creating their proper garden. But the purchase did not go down very well with some of their friends and lovers. Perhaps planting roses seemed like a disappointing career path for Vita and Harold. She was drinking, at home.
It was Harold Nicolson who provided the proper architectural framework for his wife's planting passion. Harold loved clear classical lines in his overall design of the garden. This was the perfect setting for the fine colours and the formal planting schemes that provided extensive views and privacy. Note how they divided the gardens into separate spaces, creating the famous White and Rose Gardens, Orchard, Cottage Garden etc. Vita also wrote weekly gardening articles for The Observer.
Now something I knew nothing about. Vita’s text of A Note of Explanation, 1922, has only existed as one of the miniature books in Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle. This 39 x 10 mm book was one of 200 volumes created for the tiny library bookshelf of Queen Mary’s dolls’ house. Queen Mary (1867-1953) became the wife of Prince (later King) George in 1893. How perfect that her dolls’ House was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, based on an aristocratic home. Given to the Queen as a gift for her efforts in WWI, visitors to the dolls’ house can still see the running water, electric lights, working elevators and flushing toilets.
Sissinghurst Castle and Garden
Wiki
According to the Royal Collection Trust, which finally published A Note of Explanation in 2017, Sackville-West was one of the few authors to pen a new story specifically for the dolls’ house. It was a whimsical tale about a fashionable, ageless sprite who moved into the dolls’ house and made herself comfortable. Having been present for the major moments of fairy tale history eg Cinderella’s ball, Sleeping Beauty’s waking kiss and Aladdin’s palace, she made herself at home in this early C20th house, baffling even its maker. Note however that the book had embraced the bobbed hair and short skirts of the 1920s.
The Royal Collection Trust said this 1922 work revealed Sackville-West’s influence on the writings of her lover Virginia Woolf. Orlando (1928) told the story of a fashionable, androgynous poet, meeting famous historical figures along the way. So it was appropriate that Woolf dedicated Orlando to Sackville-West, thanking her for the inspiration just a few years after Note of Explanation was written.
Matthew Dennison wrote a new Sackville-West biography, Behind the Mask in 2016. Dennison charted a fascinating course from Vita's lonely childhood at Knole, through her affectionate, open marriage to Harold Nicolson. He then examined Vita's literary successes and disappointments, and the famous gardens the couple created at Sissinghurst. From her privileged aristocratic world, Vita brought her love of play-acting, costume and rebellion to the artistic forefront of modern Britain. Go behind the beautiful mask of Vita's public achievements to reveal a complex woman, in a compelling story of love, loss and jealousy, of high-life and low life.