Nymans

Marginally hardy exotics thrive in Nymans' sheltered microclimate

Nymans is an English garden in Haywards Heath, Sussex. It was developed, starting in the late 19th century, by three generations of the Messel family, and was brought to renown by Leonard Messel.

In 1953 Nymans became a National Trust property.^[1] Nymans is the origin of many sports, selections and hybrids, both planned and serendipitous, some of which can be identified by the term nymansensis, "of Nymans". Eucryphia × nymansensis (E. cordifolia × E. glutinosa) is also known as E. "Nymansay". Magnolia × loebneri 'Leonard Messel', Camellia 'Maud Messel' and Forsythia suspensa 'Nymans', with its bronze young stems, are all familiar shrub to gardeners.

History

In the late 19th century, Ludwig Messel, a member of a German Jewish family, settled in England and bought the Nymans estate, a house with 600 acres on a sloping site overlooking the picturesque High Weald of Sussex. There he set about turning the estate into a place for family life and entertainment, with an Arts and Crafts-inspired garden room where topiary features contrast with new plants from temperate zones around the world. 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.^[2]

His son Colonel Leonard Messel succeeded to the property in 1915 and replaced the nondescript Regency house with the picturesque 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^[3] Anne Messel and her second husband the 6th Earl of Rosse. At Leonard Messel's death in 1953 it was willed to the National Trust with 275 acres of woodland, one of the first gardens taken on by the Trust. Lady Rosse continued to serve as Garden Director.

Recent developments

The garden suffered much damage in the Great Storm of October 1987, losing 486 mature trees and many of the shrubs.^[4] The pinetum, one of the garden's earliest features, was destroyed.^[5] Restorations are ongoing.^[6]

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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

1. National Trust: Nymans.
2. 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);
3. His son, her brother, was the set designer Oliver Messel.
4. GardensToGo: Nymans.
5. TourUK:Nymans
6. John Cornforth, "Nymans, Sussex: The National Trust's restoration of romantic ruins at the centre of a spectacular garden", Country Life (1997)

Coordinates: 51°03′00″N 0°11′49″W / 51.050°N 0.197°W