Woke to a beautiful, crisp morning, the view from our window was stunning.
After a final breakfast, we said goodbye to Eastbourne and around 9am headed to Sissinghurst Castle Garden 32 miles away. It isn’t on the way to our next stop in Chichester, so we had decided not to go. But after chatting to Lyn this morning changed our mind. So pleased we did.
Was a gorgeous drive up to Sissinghurst, the vegetation was lush and green and the road narrow and winding. We passed a few horses on the road.
We arrived around 10.15am. Greg had bought us Australian National Trust membership before we left home. It gives us access to National Trust properties in the UK. This is the first time we have used it here, once more and it will have paid for itself. ?
The gardens were a wow, moment. They are stunning, we wandered around, then went back out to find the lady giving a tour at 11.15am. Her name was Helen, she was the most delightful, knowledgeable woman. Helen told us that people have lived here since the 1100’s, in the 1400’s the tower that still stands was built. It was the front door to the mansion that was built to entertain Queen Elizabeth I. During the 1700’s England was again at war with France and it was used for prisoners of war. In the 1930’s it was a working farm of 500 acres with ruins and the tower and bought by Vita and Harold for £12,500.00. It Cost £15,000 to restore. They were avid gardeners and worked the garden themselves, creating garden rooms.
The garden was handed to the National Trust by their son after their death. Family come and live in the home in the summer months, they are here now so we were not able to see the rooms.
We had a wonderous time wandering around the gardens. How wonderful it would be to work there. So pleased we went. It rates very high on the list of things we have done/seen this holiday. Appreciate the encouragement to go there today. ?
After our wanderings we went and had some lunch in the cafe, it was delicious and reasonably priced considering they had no competition.
After lunch, we began the 21/2hr drive to Chichester, via Brighton. We had an idea to walk out on the pier. But there were no parks that we could see, and way tooo many people for our liking, so we put our bnb info into the GPS and left Brighton. Glad we got to get a bit of a feel for the area, don’t think we need to go back. ? (It was a bit like Eastbourne, but on steroids)
Arrived at our accomodation around 3.30pm, after a lovely greeting, a cuppa, some shortbread and some help with what to do and where to eat, we went to our room and unpacked and relaxed for a few hours before heading out to the pub for dinner. Think it will be an early night for us tonight.
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