Literary Gardens – Gardens of Famous Writers in England

Free, but bookings essential. Contact the Library.

Some great writers found inspiration and therapy in creating not only beautiful novels and poems, but also in creating gardens. Wordsworth was a superb landscape gardener and his home of Rydal Mount in the Lake District still has trees he planted, and walls he built. Rudyard Kipling spent much of his Nobel Prize money on his glorious garden at Bateman’s in Sussex, which today is lovingly cared for by the National Trust. Vita Sackville-West saw herself first as a poet, secondly as a novelist, and lastly as a gardener, but today she is best remembered for Sissinghurst Castle, where she created the famous white garden and where she spent some of her happiest hours. Jane Austen mentioned the garden of her Chawton home frequently in her letters and took great interest in what fruit and vegetables it produced for the table. Yorkshire weather made gardening a challenge for the Brontë sisters, but what grew outside their parsonage home interested them and was cared for.

Email: library@innerwest.nsw.gov.au
Phone: 9392 5588