Garden visitors’ centre
Garden Visitors’ Centre.
A collection of buildings for Nymans Gardens’ visitors’ centre for the National Trust, comprising a reception and ticket office building, a restaurant, a shop and a free-standing lavatory building. All buildings were designed to reflect the informal classical style of the famous amateur architect, artists and stage designer, Oliver Messel, whose family had owned the house and garden and had designed some of the garden buildings in the 1950s. Most buildings are constructed of timber and the restaurant has glass walls and a copper roof shaped and coloured to suggest a marquee. The building won the Copper Development Association Award in 1995.