What was the name of the property that was 450 acres in total?
Sackville-West and Nicolson found Sissinghurst in April 1930, after Dorothy Wellesley, their near neighbour and a former lover of Sackville-West's, saw the estate for sale. They had become increasingly concerned about encroaching development near their property Long Barn, near Sevenoaks, Kent. Their offer on Sissinghurst was accepted on 6 May and the castle and the farm around it were bought for £12,375, using only Sackville-West's money rather than Nicolson's. The property was 450 acres (1.8 km2) in total. The house had no electricity, running water, or drains, and the garden was in disarray. Anne Scott-James notes their "planting inheritance" as "a grove of nut-trees, some apple trees, a quince [and] a tangle of [old roses]". The physical assets on the site were "four buildings of beautiful mellow brick, part of a moat [and] various fine walls". Clearing the ground took almost three years, but by 1939 the garden was largely complete, with the exception of the White Garden. Nicolson was responsible for the design and layout, while Sackville-West, at the head of her team of gardeners, undertook the planting. Simon Jenkins, the architectural writer, describes Nicolson's design as "post-Picturesque, a garden not as an imitation of nature but as imitation of a house", and suggests his thinking was much influenced by Lawrence Johnston's garden at Hidcote. Sackville-West's approach was plant-centred, within the constraints of her husband's plan, "profusion, even extravagance and exuberance, within confines of the utmost linear severity".
Sissinghurst