THE former owner of Ramsbury Manor has left a huge art collection to the nation in his £487m will.

Property magnate Harry Hyams has left one of the largest charitable bequests, £450m out of his total estate of £487, in English legal history by selling off the manor, his art and many antique cars.

Now that the will of Mr Hyams, who died at the age of 87 last December and is best known as the developer of the Centre Point office building in London, has been released, his Capricorn Foundation will now work to put the collection on display.

Diana Rawstrone, a trustee of the foundation which formed in 2010, said that sculptures and paintings by the likes of JMW Turner, Edward Burne-Jones and George Stubbs will be loaned out to museums and art galleries across the UK.

The reclusive multi-millionaire, who was rarely seen in public or photographed, started work as an office boy aged 17 and made his money through shrewd dealings in real estate development and by the time he was 30 he was a millionaire. Last year he was ranked number 12 in the list of the richest people in the South West and number 332 in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Mr Hyams, who was married to his wife Kathleen from 1954-2011, bought the manor from Lord Rootes for £650,000 which was a record price for a private house in England back in 1964.

In 2006, Ramsbury Manor was the scene for one of Britain's biggest ever burglaries. Initially it was estimated up to £60m worth of world-famous fine art and porcelain was stolen, however valuation expert Leslie Weller later put a figure on the stolen goods of £6.07m.

Mr Hyams nor his wife were in the house at the time and the gang of five men, all part of the notorious Johnson family of travellers, were jailed for a total of 49 years in 2008.