NOVEMBER 2022 · ROAM
Nymans - National Trust
High Weald, West Sussex
The fire was 1947. Seventy-five years later, Nymans is still burning — just slowly, in reverse. What the fire left standing, the garden has been reclaiming ever since.
The facade is still there: pale stone, tall windows, the general grammar of a country house. But the windows are open to sky. The interior staircase has no ceiling above it. Ivy has been working the walls for decades, and by now it has won. White flowering vines thread through the broken window frames. You look in and see what might once have been a drawing room, except the floor is deep in leaf debris and the ivy has come through the wall from outside and is moving along the skirting.
The boundary between the managed garden and the unmanaged interior isn't marked anywhere. It simply doesn't exist.
Nymans — November 2022
The National Trust manages the gardens around the shell. They haven't tried to push the growth back from the ruin — they seem to have accepted the outcome. The boundary between the managed garden and the unmanaged interior isn't marked anywhere. It simply doesn't exist. A brick chimney stack stands at one end, bright against the grey November sky, still completely intact. Elsewhere the stone walls end mid-air.
Ancient trees line the path down from the house — the kind of trees that were planted when the house was lived in, now taller than the building and still growing. Fallen leaves thick on the ground. An estate that outlived its purpose and found a different one.
The image I kept coming back to: white flowering vines hanging through a window opening, the broken staircase visible behind them, both just existing in the same frame with no drama about it.
Stone mansion facade with ivy-covered facade and lush garden vegetation
Fire-damaged stone walls with broken windows and ivy reclaiming the ruins
Stone shell of gutted house with open windows surrounded by dense overgrowth
Ancient trees lining an autumn path with fallen leaves and wooden fence
Stone staircase in ruined interior overgrown with ivy and leaf debris
Stone cottage with tall brick chimney nestled among dense garden vegetation
Stone building with prominent brick chimney and white flowering climbing vines