Head gardener role up for grabs at Sissinghurst
It is one of the world's most famous gardens that has inspired
imitations across the globe.
Now the job of keeping the grounds of Sissinghurst Castle up to
scratch is up for grabs.
The National Trust is looking for a head gardener to replace
Alexis Datta, who is retiring after 22 years at the estate in
Biddenden Road, near Cranbrook.
One of the key roles in British gardening will involve
maintining the garden's grid of "rooms" and striking borders.
Attracting a £35,000-a-year salary, the successful applicant
will show "an impressively broad knowledge of plants" and a
"natural flair for aesthetic flower garden design".
The job advert reads: "Sissinghurst garden and estate is a haven
away from the world, a place where over many centuries many people
have created a richly layered beauty.
"The garden is arguably the most popular and influential in the
world; created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson in the
1930s, it draws on that sense of embedded time and on the
thousand-year-old landscape that surrounds it.
"It is a refuge dedicated to beauty, a poetic vision that
reflects the marriage of sensibilities, the classic and romantic,
profusion and exactness. "Your challenge, and the incredible
opportunity that goes with it, is to interpret and develop this
garden into its next phase."
Sissinghurst Castle - the ruin of an Elizabethan manor house -
was once a prison to captured French seamen during the Seven Years
War, a poor house and then a working farm.
It gained international fame in the 1930s when Vita
Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson created a garden divided into
"rooms".
The new head gardener will have a team of six plus a group of
more than 20 volunteers.
For more information about the vacancy, which closes on Friday,
December 21, visit nationaltrustjobs.org.uk.
26/11/12
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