Marginally hardy exotics thrive in Nymans' sheltered microclimate
Nymans is an English garden to the east of the village of Handcross, and in the civil parish of Slaugham in West Sussex, England. The garden was developed, starting in the late nineteenth 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 shrubs to gardeners.
In the late nineteenth 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 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.
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[8]Anne Messel and her second husband the 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 the Great Storm of October 1987, losing 486 mature trees and many of the shrubs.[9] The pinetum, one of the garden's earliest features, was destroyed.[10]
The southern frontage of Nymans in 1932 before the fire and subsequent ruin
The southern frontage today. The ruined house remains a garden feature.
Mixed borders of perennials and annuals in midsummer
↑ 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 Society96.11) (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);
Blickling Hall is a Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ruins of a Tudor building for Sir Henry Hobart from 1616 and designed by Robert Lyminge. The library at Blickling Hall contains one of the most historically significant collections of manuscripts and books in England, containing an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 volumes. The core collection was formed by Sir Richard Ellys. The property passed into the care of the National Trust in 1940.
Sorbus is a genus of over 100 species of trees and shrubs in the rose family, Rosaceae. Species of Sorbus (s.l.) are commonly known as whitebeam, rowan, mountain-ash and service tree. The exact number of species is disputed depending on the circumscription of the genus, and also due to the number of apomictic microspecies, which some treat as distinct species, but others group in a smaller number of variable species. Recent treatments classify Sorbus in a narrower sense to include only the pinnate leaved species of subgenus Sorbus, raising several of the other subgenera to generic rank.
Magnolia stellata, the star magnolia, is a slow-growing deciduous shrub or small tree native to Japan. It bears large, showy white or pink flowers in early spring, before its leaves open. This species is closely related to the Kobushi magnolia, and is treated by many botanists as a variety or even a cultivar of that. However, Magnolia stellata was accepted as a distinct species in the 1998 monograph by Hunt.
St Leonards-on-Sea is a town and seaside resort in the Borough of Hastings in East Sussex, England. It has been part of the borough since the late 19th century and lies to the west of central Hastings. The original part of the settlement was laid out in the early 19th century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off; it also included a central public garden, a hotel, an archery, assembly rooms and a church. Today's St Leonards has extended well beyond that original design, although the original town still exists within it.
Eucryphia is a small genus of trees and large shrubs native to the south temperate regions of South America and coastal eastern Australia, mainly Tasmania. Sometimes placed in a family of their own, the Eucryphiaceae, more recent classifications place them in the Cunoniaceae. There are seven species, two in South America and five in Australia, and several named hybrids.
Mottisfont Abbey is a historical priory and country estate in Hampshire, England. Sheltered in the valley of the River Test, the property is now operated by the National Trust. 393,250 people visited the site in 2019. The site includes the historic house museum which features regularly changing art exhibitions, gardens, including a walled rose garden which is home to the National Plant Collection of ancestral rose species and 19th-century rose cultivars, and a riverside walk. It is a Grade I listed building.
Bodnant Garden is a National Trust property near Tal-y-Cafn, Conwy, Wales, overlooking the Conwy Valley towards the Carneddau mountains.
Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, which includes the Coe Hall Historic House Museum, is an arboretum and state park covering over 400 acres (160 ha) located in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, New York.
Trelissick is a house and garden in the ownership of the National Trust at Feock, near Truro, Cornwall, England. It is located on the B3289 road, just west of King Harry Ferry, and overlooks the estuary known as Carrick Roads. It lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Almost a third of Cornwall has AONB designation.
The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens is an arboretum comprising 72 hectares accommodating over 42,000 trees and shrubs in about 12,000 taxa, notably a collection of oaks, camellia, magnolia and rhododendron.
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is a historic house with gardens located on the Ashley River at 3550 Ashley River Road west of Ashley, Charleston County, South Carolina. It is one of the oldest plantations in the South, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Magnolia Plantation is located near Charleston and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston. The house and gardens are open daily; an admission fee is charged.
Colonsay House is a Georgian country house on the island of Colonsay, in the Scottish Inner Hebrides. It is a Category B listed building, and is now in the ownership of the Barons Strathcona. The gardens are open to the public on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons between April and October, and are listed on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, the national listing of historic gardens.
Leonardslee is an English country house and English landscape garden and woodland garden in Lower Beeding, near Horsham, West Sussex, England. The Grade I listed garden is particularly significant for its spring displays of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, magnolias and bluebells, with the flowering season reaching its peak in May. The estate includes a 19th-century Italianate style house and lodge as well as an intact Pulhamite rockery.
Borde Hill Garden is a garden located 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north of Haywards Heath, West Sussex in southern England. It is set in over 200 acres (80 ha) of garden, park and woodlands which has views across the Sussex High Weald.
Eryldene is a heritage-listed former family residence and now house museum located at 17 McIntosh Street in the Sydney North Shore suburb of Gordon, Australia. It was designed by William Hardy Wilson and built from 1913 to 1936 by Rudolph G. Ochs. The property is owned by The Eryldene Trust. The house and its garden, which is noted for its camellias was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 and was listed on the Australian Register of the National Estate.
Magnolia × loebneriKache is a hybrid of two Magnolia species, the Japanese Magnolia kobus and M. stellata. crossed by Garteninspektor Max Löbner of Pillnitz, Germany, shortly before World War I; it first flowered in 1917. The deciduous, elegant and compact multi-stemmed small flowering tree or large shrub, slowly attaining a height of 20 ft (6.1 m) and somewhat wider at maturity, is hardy to USDA Zone 4. Its fragrant late flowers, following its stellata parent by a couple of weeks, escape unexpected late spring frosts, but appear on the bare branches, to great effect. The deep pink buds open in informal strap-like tepals with pale shell pink upper surfaces and darker pink-purple lower ones. Like most magnolias, it thrives best on acid soils.
Woolbeding House is an 18th-century country house in Woolbeding, near Midhurst, West Sussex, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
Anne Parsons, Countess of Rosse, was an English socialite and one of the founders of The Victorian Society. She was the mother of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon and Brendan Parsons, 7th Earl of Rosse.
Norman Adolphus Evill FRIBA was an English architect and draughtsman, apprenticed to Edwin Lutyens.
Maud Frances SambourneMessel was a British artist and horticulturalist. She was awarded an MBE for her work with the Red Cross in World War I.
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