Sackville-West died in the first-floor bedroom of the Priest's House on 2 June 1962. Nicolson recorded her death in his diary: "Ursula is with Vita. At about 1.5 she observes that Vita is breathing heavily, and then suddenly is silent. She dies without fear or self-reproach. I pick some of her favourite flowers and lay them on her bed". Her death devastated Nicolson and his last years were not happy. Giving up his Albany apartment in May 1965, he retired to Sissinghurst and thereafter he never stayed anywhere else. He died of a heart attack in his bedroom at the South Cottage on 1 May 1968.