Nymans

On the last day of our long weekend in Sussex we visited Nymans, near Haywards Heath. The home of the Messel family from the late 19th century, the property was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1953. The house was badly damaged by fire in 1947 and now stands as a gothic ruin in the beautiful garden. Part of the house was rebuilt and was the home of Anne Messel until her death in 1992. You can now see inside some of those rooms, some of which are largely as she left them. Mark and I came here many years ago and it was lovely to return again with our family.

We had a lovely visit here and I took a quite shocking number of photographs. The romantic ruin standing amidst such beautiful grounds was quite inspiring. It must be strange living in a largely ruined house. I think you couldn't have too much imagination if you wanted to live there and remain quite sane! I loved it here (hence the large number of photos!) and I would have loved more time to explore the grounds.

We stopped to enjoy some ice cream. Can you guess what flavour Emma had?