The estate was privately owned until 1998, when its 245 acres, and Tranmer House (originally Sutton Hoo House and renamed by the Trust in honour of the donor), were bequeathed to the National Trust.[7][8] In 2000 the Trust commissioned van Heyningen and Haward Architects to design a visitor centre.[9] Their work included the overall planning of the estate, the design of an exhibition hall and visitor facilities, car park, and the restoration of the Edwardian house.[10] The £5 million visitor centre (equivalent to £8.3 million in 2020) was opened on 13 March 2002 by Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, whose translation of Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon epic poem that describes extravagant burial customs similar to those observed at Sutton Hoo, had been published in 1999.[11]