Opening the ruins to visitors

We’re starting work on an ambitious project to open the ruins to visitors. Over the next three years we’ll be conserving different parts of the ruins, making essential repairs and planning to open them up to visitors. We’ve already started work.

Thank you 

In 2017 you raised £28,784 through the Special Places Raffle, all of which will go towards opening the ruins up to visitors. Currently the ruins are opened just once a year but with your continued support we will raise the funds to make them safe enough to open them permanently in the near future.   

Plans for 2018

Towards the end of 2017 scaffolding in the Forecourt Garden was removed, together with the scaffolding from outside the Entrance Hall. The funds raised from the sale of raffle tickets throughout 2017 will be spent on essential repairs in the ruined Entrance Hall and Great Hall. The raffle this year will fund masonry repairs to the ruined Library with work scheduled to take place in 2019.  

What you’ll see

Once essential repairs are underway we can start to think about opening them up to visitors. In 2019 you'll be able to come inside the Great Hall. This will give you a fantastic view of the garden as it was meant to be seen from inside the house. In 2019 we'll be creating a garden inside the ruined Great Hall. Designed by our garden team, the project will be realised with collaboration from local community groups. If you’d like to know more please contact lisa.davies@nationaltrust.org.uk.

After opening the Great Hall we'll then be able to open the Balcombe Room. Once a pleasant sitting room looking over the valley to the village of Balcombe, the room is now a shell. To make it safe the room needs a new floor and a new roof too, which in itself will cost £120,000.

Eventually the Balcombe Room will be the place where visitors will be welcomed into the house and will discover the different things they can see and do. All the ruined spaces will be opened up and although we can never return them to their former magnificence visitors will learn the stories that will bring them to life.

The rooms that are currently accessed from the main lawn will once again be joined up with the ruined Drawing Room, Library and Great Hall. Access to these rooms will be via a passage beyond the ruined Library, as it was before the fire of 1947, and the whole house will feel less fragmented.

How you can help

As you’d imagine a project of this scale costs a huge amount of money. As a charity the National Trust receives no statutory funding and we rely on our supporters’ generosity. You can help fund this and other projects at Nymans by:

• Buying a £1 raffle ticket
• Purchasing a book from our second- hand bookshop.
• Making a donation

You could also volunteer with us and help tell people about the project.  

• Phase 1 -2017- will cost £35,000
• Phase 2 -2018- will cost up to £60,000
• Phase 3  -2019- upwards of £120,000

How you can keep up to date with the project developments.

We’ll update the website with images from each stage of the project and let you know how much we’ve raised and how we’ve spent it. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook too (NymansNT)  where we’ll post project updates. You can visit us and see for yourself how the project is progressing. Although you won’t be able to see work progressing inside the ruins you’ll see scaffolding going up and will be able to ask staff and volunteers questions.  Our raffle sellers, room stewards and garden guides are particularly knowledgeable and are always happy to stop and have a chat.         

What happened to the house at Nymans?

On a freezing February night in 1947 the household woke up to find Nymans on fire. Fireman tried to fight the blaze but as the standpipes were frozen they had to pump water up from a garden pond. It just wasn’t enough to deal with the scale of the fire and Nymans, together with its precious contents, was very badly damaged. ‘Our beloved Nymans is gone. Thank God all got out unhurt. Am overwhelmed by the kindness of friends and neighbours’ Leonard Messel, Feb 20, 1947.