Long Barn, Sevenoaks Weald, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

An early 20th-century formal and ornamental garden, designed and planted by Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Long Barn is situated on the extreme south-east edge of the village of Sevenoaks Weald which lies some 1.5 kilometres south-west of the main A21, Sevenoaks to Tonbridge road. The roughly one hectare of formal terraces flanked by informal plantings which comprise the registered site lie on the south-east-facing slope of a low Wealden ridge which drops steeply across the site from north-west to south-east. There are extensive distant views southwards over the Kentish Weald. On their west side, the gardens are enclosed from the adjacent minor lane by a close-boarded fence while to the north, east, and south they are bounded by a mixture of tall, clipped thorn hedge (to north and south) and post and wire and further close-boarded fencing (to the east). To the immediate north-west, north, and north-east, adjacent village buildings, garden land, and paddocks abut the site while beyond the remaining boundaries is a landscape of wooded farmland.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

Country Life, 169 (9 April 1981), pp 924-6

J Brown, Vita's Other World (1985), pp 61-77, 90-100

Maps

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1868-9, published 1871; 2nd edition 1879; 3rd edition 1909

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1868-9; 3rd edition 1909; 1939 edition
 

Description written: April 1998

Amended: January 1999

Edited: November 2003