Cranbrook

The small town of Cranbrook is in the Weald of Kent and its medieval church goes by the unofficial title of, 'Cathedral of the Weald'. The town’s other outstanding feature is the 75-ft high smock windmill, which is the largest of its kind in the country and a Grade I listed building.

Nearby is Sissinghurst Castle, which has one of the world’s most well known gardens. The castle, now a shadow of its former self, was once a grand Tudor manor house and one of the first homes in the country to be built with bricks.

Having had its moments at the cutting edge of English life it had fallen into a state of near ruin when Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson acquired it in the 1930s. The gardens and grounds were recreated in a naturalistic, informal style and when the famous literary couple died they knew they had completed a remarkable transformation.