Nymans is anEnglish garden to the east of the village ofHandcross, and in thecivil parish ofSlaugham inWest Sussex, England. The garden was developed, starting in the late nineteenth century, by three generations of the Messel family, and was brought to renown byLeonard Messel.
In 1953 Nymans became aNational Trust property.[1] Nymans is the origin of manysports, selections and hybrids, both planned and serendipitous, some of which can be identified by the termnymansensis, "of Nymans".Eucryphia × nymansensis (E. cordifolia ×E. glutinosa) is also known asE. "Nymansay".Magnolia × loebneri 'Leonard Messel', Camellia 'Maud Messel' andForsythia suspensa 'Nymans', with its bronze young stems, are all familiar shrubs to gardeners.
The gardens are listedGrade II* inHistoric England'sRegister of Parks and Gardens,[2] and the house is a Grade IIlisted building.[3] During 2019, the gardens received 382,948 visitors.[4]
In the late nineteenth century, Ludwig Ernest Wilhelm Leonard Messel (1847–1915), a member of a German Jewish banking family, settled in England and bought the Nymans estate, a house with 243 hectares (600 acres) on a sloping site overlooking the picturesqueHigh Weald of Sussex. There he set about turning the estate into a place for family life and entertainment, with anArts and Crafts-inspired garden room wheretopiary features contrast with new plants from temperate zones around the world.
After buying the property in 1890, Messel set about transforming the originalRegency house into a German-style structure. Ludwig's brotherAlfred 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 ofcamellias,rhododendrons, which unusually at the time were combined with plantingheather (Erica)eucryphias andmagnolias.William Robinson advised in establishing the Wild Garden.[6]
Unfortunately Messel, who was of Jewish ancestry and of German extraction, was harassed during theFirst 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 wifeMaud, replaced the German-style wood-beam house with a picturesque mock-medieval stone manor, designed by SirWalter Tapper andNorman Evill in a mellow lateGothic/Tudor style. He and his wife Maud (daughter ofEdward 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[8]Anne Messel and her second husbandMichael Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse. At Leonard Messel's death in 1953 it was bequeathed to the National Trust with 111 hectares (275 acres) of woodland, one of the first gardens taken on by the Trust. Lady Rosse continued to serve as Garden Director.
The garden suffered much damage in theGreat Storm of October 1987, losing 486 mature trees and many of the shrubs.[9] Thepinetum, one of the garden's earliest features, was destroyed.[10]
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