The documents, some shown left, included manuscript articles for her gardening column in the Observer for August 1956 to February 1958, article proofs and a number of letters from her readers including one from the then Director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.
The collection had been modestly estimated at £1500-2000 but the bidder for the Observer and Guardian Newspaper Group had to go to £9000 to secure their piece of history against determined competition – although, this being a charitable event, there was no extra outlay in the form of buyer’s premiums.
All in all, the 21 lots raised a very satisfactory £22,000 for the National Trust.
Vita’s work returns to the Observer
At the end of the morning session of Sotheby’s Garden Statuary sale at Billingshurst, the National Trust took over the rostrum to offer such items for gardening enthusiasts as an avenue of 40 young limes from the Trust’s nursery in Cheshire, home visits from Trust gardening experts and so on, but the piece of trade interest was a scrapbook kept by Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst donated by her son Nigel Nicolson.
