My Adventures 3: Sissinghurst to Cranbrook Kent Circular walk. 16th February 2024

GPX file here

On Friday the 16th February 2024 Ian and I drove just over and hour to Sissinghurst in Kent. We parked roadside on Common Road and walked up to The Street in Sissinghurst.

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.

The village of Sissinghurst grew up along an old drovers’ route. It was known as Mylkehouse or Milk House Street until 1851 when it was renamed after the local Sissinghurst Castle to shake off its reputation for cockfighting, outrage and robbery!

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.

An infamous group, the "Holkhourst Genge", terrorised the surrounding area between 1735 and 1749. They were the most notorious of the Kent gangs, and were feared all along the south coast of England. At Poole in Dorset, where they had launched an armed attack on the customs house (to take back a consignment of tea that had been confiscated), several were hanged including Thomas Kingsmill, one of the gang's leaders.

We walked up to Trinity Church Sissinghurst. In 1838 Admiral King, his sister and her daughter finance the building of Trinity Church at a cost of £1900 and the ecclesiastical parish is formed.

We walk back and take Chapel Lane and turn right onto a footpath here that runs parallel to Sissinghurst Road.

Here we discover the first mud of the day, that only gets worst as the day goes by.

We drop down to cross the Buckhurst Farm Road and climb back up the other side.

We continue on across the field down to a waterlogged and muddy gate and into a wooded area of Buckhurst Farm.

We exit out of the woods by Oak Hill Manor and continue along a track.

Oak Hill Manor has ornamental gardens and grounds laid out around a neo-Georgian mansion designed by Charles Geddes Clarkson Hyslop (1899-1988) in 1938 and set within extensive 18th-century parkland and woods.

We continue along the track, nice to be mud free for a while. As w walk we can see the windmill in Cranbrook in the distance.

We then leave the track onto a path on our left that leads downhill into another waterlogged mudfest.

We cross a bridge over the Crane Brook follow the path down to Golford Road.

We follow the road towards Cranbrook.

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 Society fieldwork project to establish the extent of the site and the line of the Roman road from Rochester to Bodiam, which was published in 2001. The site had earlier produced a number of clay tiles bearing the mark of the Roman Fleet, or Classis Brittanica who may have been overseeing the work.

Edward III brought over Flemish weavers to develop the Wealden cloth industry using wool from Romney Marsh; Cranbrook became the centre of this as it had local supplies of fuller's earth and plenty of streams that could be dammed to drive the fulling mills. Iron-making was carried on at Bedgebury on the River Teise, an industry which dates back to Roman times. The tributaries of the River Beult around Cranbrook powered 17 watermills at one time. In 1290 the town received a charter from Archbishop Peckham, allowing it to hold a market in the High Street.

Golford Road becomes Bakers Cross an here is a old Telephone box repurposed as a library.

Baker's Cross on the eastern edge of the town is linked to John Baker, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Queen Mary, a Catholic. Legend holds that he was riding on his way to Cranbrook in order to have two local Protestants executed, when he turned back after the news reached him that Queen Mary was dead. Different versions of the legend have it that he heard the parish church bells ringing, or that he was met by a messenger. The place where this happened was, in the words of biographer and historian Arthur Irwin Dasent, "at a place where three roads meet, known to this day as Baker's Cross".

Popular legend also has it that Baker was killed at Baker's Cross; although in fact he died in his house in London.

Bakers Cross now becomes The Hill and we walk up the pretty road and village.

We reach the Union Windmill in Cranbrook. England’s tallest working smock mill.

Union Mill was built in 1814 by Cranbrook millwright James Humphrey for Mary Dobell and was initially worked by her son Henry. Mrs Dobell was declared bankrupt in 1819 and the mill was taken over by a union of her creditors, and thus gained its name. The mill was sold to John and George Russell in 1832, remaining in the Russell family for five generations until it was purchased by Kent County Council in 1957 after the retirement of the last miller.

Restoration commenced on 18 June 1958 and was completed in 1960, costing a total of £6,000. Rex Wailes presided over the official reopening of the mill. In 1994 the fantail was blown off during a storm, damaging the sails as it fell and landing on a parked car. In November 2010, the mill was repainted by a team from WallWalkers, who abseiled down the mill to access the smock, as an alternative to using scaffolding to surround the mill whilst the work was undertaken.

The mill is seven storeys tall, with a three-storey smock on a four-storey brick base, which consist of basement, ground, first and second floors. It cost £3,500 to build in 1814. The overall height to the cap roof is 72 feet (21.95 m).

We on along The Hill towards the village centre.

We leave the hill and onto Stone Street and its shops and tearooms.

A look back to Union Windmill.

On the corner of Stone Street and High Street, St Dunstan's Church is nestled back away from the High Street hustle and bustle.

St Dunstan's Church, also known as the Cathedral of the Weald, in Cranbrook, dates to the late 13th century. It is now Grade I listed.

Its 74 feet-high tower, completed in 1425, has a wooden figure of Father Time and his scythe on the south face. It also contains the prototype for the Big Ben clock in London. Work started in the late 13th century, the chancel arch and porch are a century later, the nave and tower were added after 1500, and William Slater and Ewan Christian restored the building in 1863. It is administered by the Weald Deanery, part of the Archdeaconry of Maidstone, which is in turn one of three archdeaconries in the Diocese of Canterbury.

Snowdrops were abundant today and there were plenty here in the churchyard amongst the daffodils.

Sadly the church was locked and we make our way back down to the High Street.

To the left here is the Vestry Hall. Previously the George Inn, a late medieval hall where Queen Elizabeth I was received. Then old Fire Station was below.

We walk up hill along the High Street.

A old Victorian Postbox.

We turn right onto a footpath ;pass some houses, cross Angley Road and into Angley Wood on the High Weald Landscape Trail.

We follow the track through Angley Woods.

Now we reach the part of the woods that is clearly used for logging and the path become a mud fest where heavy machinery has been used.

We leave the High Weald Landscape trail and follow paths through Burnt Bank Wood and its very muddy and slippery paths.

Here in the woods I see some firecrests, but more likely goldcrest's. Damn wish I had my binoculars to be sure!

We head downhill on a muddy path, at one point I stepped into a deep section that almost reached the top of my boot!

This is now Gravel Pit Wood.

We cross a stream at the bottom and into a seriously muddy and waterlogged paths.

We hung onto the fence as we tried our best to stay of out the oozy mud.

More Snowdrops in the woods.

We leave the woods and follow track up pass Dog Kennels Farm.

We then walk out and along a busy A262 road. Care is needed to be taken here,

We turn left onto Friezley Lane and here is another Victorian Post-box!

Up a footpath on our right and then down onto a wooden footway.

As I walk along the walkway a male Pheasant jumps to life, flying upwards screaming.

Passing more snowdrops down by a stream we climb a muddy slippery slope up onto Friezley Woods.

Then we pass through Hilly Wood to a steep and long continuous climb upwards, suns warm now and with the climb, I slip off my fleece.

We walk out onto Starvenden Lane and stop to say hello to some horses that wasn't interested in moving.

A little further along some ponies did wander over to greet us.

We eventually walk out onto the busy A229 and walk up a short way before turning left onto Spongs Lane.

Spongs Lane

We walk out onto Frittenden Road, another busy road with no pavement or verge. More care needed here,

After a bit of road walking it is nice to be off the road and walking down pass the Race Horse House.

We follow this for a while and this eventually leads us onto the grounds of Sissinghurst Castle grounds.

I use my NT Membership for free access and Ian pays £13 and we enter.

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'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 was ranked 42nd on the list of the Trust's most-visited sites in the 2021–2022 season, with over 150,000 visitors.

The gardens contain an internationally respected plant collection, particularly the assemblage of old garden roses. The writer Anne Scott-James considered the roses at Sissinghurst to be "one of the finest collections in the world". A number of plants propagated in the gardens bear names related to people connected with Sissinghurst or the name of the garden itself. The garden design is based on axial walks that open onto enclosed gardens, termed "garden rooms", one of the earliest examples of this gardening style. Among the individual "garden rooms", the White Garden has been particularly influential, with the horticulturalist Tony Lord describing it as "the most ambitious of its time, the most entrancing of its type."

The site of Sissinghurst is ancient and has been occupied since at least the Middle Ages. The present-day buildings began as a house built in the 1530s by Sir John Baker. In 1554 Sir John's daughter Cecily married Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, an ancestor of Vita Sackville-West. By the 18th century the Baker's fortunes had waned, and the house, renamed Sissinghurst Castle, was leased to the government to act as a prisoner-of-war camp during the Seven Years' War. The prisoners caused great damage and by the 19th century much of Sir Richard's house had been demolished. In the mid-19th century, the remaining buildings were in use as a workhouse, and by the 20th century Sissinghurst had declined to the status of a farmstead. In 1928 the castle was advertised for sale but remained unsold for two years.

Sackville-West was born in 1892 at Knole, the ancestral home of the Sackvilles. But for her sex, Sackville-West would have inherited Knole on the death of her father in 1928. Instead, following primogeniture, the house and the title passed to her uncle, a loss she felt deeply. In 1930, after she and Nicolson became concerned that their home Long Barn was threatened by development, Sackville-West bought Sissinghurst Castle. On purchasing Sissinghurst, Sackville-West and Nicolson inherited little more than some oak and nut trees, a quince, and a single old rose. Sackville-West planted the noisette rose 'Madame Alfred Carrière' on the south face of the South Cottage even before the deeds to the property had been signed. Nicolson was largely responsible for planning the garden design, while Sackville-West undertook the planting. Over the next thirty years, working with her head gardeners, she cultivated some two hundred varieties of roses and large numbers of other flowers and shrubs. Decades after Sackville-West and Nicolson created "a garden where none was", Sissinghurst remains a major influence on horticultural thought and practice.

Sackvilles-West Writing Room in the Tower.

We climb the many, many steps to the top of the tower to see the fantastic views.

The Tower is of brick and was the entrance to the cour d'honneur of the 1560s rebuilding. Of four storeys, it has recessed staircase turrets to each side, creating what the architectural historian Mark Girouard described as an "extraordinarily slender and elegant" appearance. The courtyard was open on the tower side, its three facades containing seven classical doorways. Girouard notes Horace Walpole's observation of 1752, "perfect and very beautiful". Such an arrangement of a three-sided courtyard with a prominent gatehouse set some way in front became popular from Elizabethan times, similar examples being Rushton Hall and the original Lanhydrock.

The Tower was Sackville-West's sanctum; her study was out of bounds to all but her dogs and a small number of guests by invitation. Her writing room is maintained largely as it was at the time of her death. Nigel Nicolson records his discovery in the Tower of his mother's manuscript describing her affair with Violet Trefusis. This went on to form the basis of his book Portrait of a Marriage. The clock, below the Tower parapet, was installed in 1949. A plaque is affixed to the arch of the Tower;[ the words were chosen by Harold Nicolson: "Here lived V. Sackville-West who made this garden". Nigel Nicolson always felt that the memorial failed to acknowledge his father's contribution. The Tower has a Grade I listing.

View down to the South Cottage.

View to Priest's House.

South Cottage

We leave the tower and have a walk about the gardens.

This building formed the southeast corner of the courtyard enclosure buildings. It was restored by Beale & Son, builders from Tunbridge Wells, and provided the pair with separate bedrooms, a shared sitting room, and Nicolson's writing room. His diary entry for 20 April 1933 records: "My new wing has been done. The sitting room is lovely, My bedroom, W.C. and bathroom are divine". Of two storeys in red brick, with an extension dating from the 1930s, South Cottage has a Grade II* listing.

In the cottage garden, it is alive with a sea of blue crocus's.

We along the Lime Walk, bet this nice in the summer months!

A early flowering Camelia.

We walk around to the priest's House with the well in front.

The architectural historian John Newman suggests that this building was a "viewing pavilion or lodge". Its name derives from the tradition that it was used to house a Catholic priest, the Baker family having been Catholic adherents. Sackville-West and Nicolson converted the cottage to provide accommodation for their sons, and the family kitchen and dining room. Of red brick and two storeys, Historic England suggests that the building may originally have been attached to Sir Richard Baker's 1560s house but Newman disagrees.