Letterpress re-imagined: printing at Sissinghurst

A Heritage Lottery Funded project to reprint a poem by Vita Sackville-West, using traditional letterpress technology.

Sissinghurst is one of the most loved places in Kent both for the literary connection of its owner, Vita Sackville-West, to the Bloomsbury group and also for the wonderful gardens she designed. Through reprinting one of Vita's poems titled "Sissinghurst" on an original letterpress, this innovative project revives a lost craft in a location of great historic and literary significance.

“Letterpress printing has largely disappeared since the industry was closed in the 1980s, and subsequent rise of digital media. Surviving presses are often in poor repair and missing vital components, while a diminishing number of owners have the skills to operate them.

Now under-read, Vita Sackville-West was one of the most prolific of the 'Bloomsbury group', publishing most of her work with Woolf's Hogarth Press.

The project will raise awareness of her importance as a writer and enable wider access to a poem, that remains out of print, and which focuses on her own response to the historic significance of Sissinghurst.

Training National Trust volunteers in letterpress techniques will enable them to tell visitors about the function and importance of the original Hogarth letterpress displayed at Sissinghurst, and its part in developing and promoting the famous Bloomsbury group, as well as increasing awareness of the important letterpress library collections owned by the National Trust."

Carolyn Oulton, Director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers