Numbering just 748 residents, Sissinghurst is among the smallest of these villages, but it’s also the most famous. Set in the lush Weald of Kent, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it line of whitewashed, old brick and clapboard houses with a post office, a pub, a church and a village chippy. It’s very pretty, but what really makes Sissinghurst is, the eponymous castle and gardens created by Vita Sackville-West.
The inimitable Sackville-West came to Sissinghurst in 1930, buying the Elizabethan ruin that had once been owned by her ancestors after she was excluded from inheriting nearby Knole House. Together with her husband, Harold Nicolson, she transformed the house and adjoining farmstead into one of the world’s most influential gardens. Victims of their own beauty, the gardens get desperately busy, so if you’re keen to appreciate them without Chelsea Flower Show-esque jostling, arrive first thing in the morning or stay in the adjoining Priest’s House (see below).
For a pint
Options are limited to one pub but, happily, it’s an excellent one. The 16th-century Milk House is a proper village boozer, albeit one that serves classic pub grub, local ales and wood-fired pizzas as well as refined British cuisine in the Dining Room.
Stay here
The Milk House (themilkhouse.co.uk) offers four charming bedrooms (from £160, including breakfast). Green-fingered types should push the wheelbarrow out and stay in the Priest’s House (nationaltrust.org.uk/holidays/kent-surrey-sussex/priests-house), a glorious three-bedroom property believed to be part of the Elizabethan mansion that made up Sissinghurst Castle. The self-catered pad sits on the edge of Sackville’s beloved White Garden and comes with invaluable out-of-hours access to the gardens.
Did you know?
Sissinghurst was called Milkhouse Street, or Mylkehouse, until 1851. It’s believed that the decision to rename it after the Sissinghurst Castle Estate was part of a mission to rid the village of negative associations with the smuggling activities of the Hawkhurst Gang (see Goudhurst, below, for more detail on this unruly bunch).