Nymans
Nymans is an
In 1953 Nymans became a
The gardens are listed
History
In the late 19th century, Ludwig Ernest Wilhelm Leonard Messel (1847-1915), a member of a German Jewish family, settled in England and bought the Nymans estate, a house with 243 hectares (600 acres) on a sloping site overlooking the picturesque
After buying the property in 1890, Messel set about transforming the original Regency house into a German-style structure. Ludwig's brother Alfred Messel, already a well-known architect in Germany, drew up the plans; construction work was carried out by local builders.[5]
Messel's head gardener from 1895 was James Comber, whose expertise helped form plant collections at Nymans of camellias, rhododendrons, which unusually at the time were combined with planting heather (Erica) eucryphias and magnolias. William Robinson advised in establishing the Wild Garden.[6]
Unfortunately Messel, who was of Jewish ancestry and of German extraction, was harassed during the First World War. Unsubstantiated rumours abounded that he used the tower at Nymans for the purposes of espionage.[7]
Ludwig's son Colonel Leonard Messel succeeded to the property in 1915 and, at the request of his wife Maud, replaced the German-style wood-beam house with a picturesque mock-medieval stone manor, designed by Sir Walter Tapper and Norman Evill in a mellow late Gothic/Tudor style. He and his wife Maud (daughter of Edward Linley Sambourne) extended the garden to the north and subscribed to seed collecting expeditions in the Himalayas and South America.
The garden reached a peak in the 1930s and was regularly opened to the public. The severe reduction of staff in World War II was followed in 1947 by a disastrous fire in the house, which survives as a garden ruin. The house was partially rebuilt and became the home of Leonard Messel's daughter
The garden suffered much damage in the
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The southern frontage of Nymans in 1932 before the fire and subsequent ruin
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The southern frontage today. The ruined house remains a garden feature.
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Mixed borders of perennials and annuals in midsummer
Notes
- ^ National Trust: Nymans.
- ^ Historic England. "Nymans (1000160)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
- ^ Historic England. "Nymans (1025612)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 9 June 2022.
- ^ "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". www.alva.org.uk. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ^ "The architecture of Nymans".
- ^ Garden history of Nymans: Leonard Messel, A Garden Flora: Trees and Flowers Grown in the Gardens at Nymans, (1918); L.M.H. Parsons 1971 "The gardens at Nymans". Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society 96.11) (1971: 482-491); A.P.M. Rosse, Nymans: The Home of the Earl and Countess of Rosse, (National Trust, 1973); A. Rosse and A. Buchanan, Nymans, West Sussex (National Trust, 1990); Shirley Nicholson, Nymans: the story of a Sussex garden (1992);
- ^ "The architecture of Nymans".
- ^ His son, her brother, was the set designer Oliver Messel.
- ^ GardensToGo: Nymans.
- ^ TourUK:Nymans