PGW(Dy)46(CER)

Alltyrodyn  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Ceredigion  

Llandysul  

244935  

244273  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Pleasure grounds; walled kitchen garden.  

About 1830-40.  

Registered for the survival of an early nineteenth-century ornamental pleasure ground on a grand scale, contemporary with the house, complete with a rare bath house and large, well preserved kitchen garden, which includes a flower garden compartment and an orangery. The wooded grounds contain fine mature trees and look out over an attractive, unspoilt rural valley. The registered grounds have strong group value with the house, associated estate buildings and ornamental garden structures and the estate farm complex. Alltyrodyn (LB: 10643) is a substantial early nineteenth century house located to the north-east of Llandysul in Ceredigion, on the east flank of the Clettwr valley. Its designed landscape comprises pleasure grounds, gardens and walled gardens. These are all contemporary with the present house, dating to the 1830s and 40s. The date stones of 1830 (kitchen garden) and 1840 (stables) indicate that it was John Lloyd (died 1841) who was their builder and therefore likely to have been creating the pleasure grounds at the same time. The pleasure grounds occupy a narrow band of south-west sloping wooded land on the east flank of the Clettwr valley, about one kilometre long, below the B4459 road. The house lies in the centre and is reached by two drives, one from the north and one from the south. The main entrance is at the south-east end of the grounds and lies just north of a bridge on the B4459 over a small stream, the Afon Geyron. A small entrance lodge (LB: 10653) adjoins the drive. The lodge does not appear on the 1840 tithe map and was therefore probably built for John Lloyd Davies, owner from 1841-1860. The pleasure grounds are bounded along the road on the north-east side by a rubble stone wall and between the kitchen garden and the dam of the pond at the south-east end by a substantial ha-ha. Just inside the drive, on the south side, is an opening, flanked by quartz stones, leading to a sloping lawn down to a small pond. This is D-shaped, with a straight-sided earthen dam along its west side. The Afon Geyron flows into the pond over a series of cascades under the road bridge, the outlet flowing into an ornamental cascade, a curving, sunken and steeply dropping stone-lined channel (LB: 10654) and across the valley to the Clettwr. On the north side of the drive, a walk leads through the wooded grounds. This layout is shown on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map, surveyed 1886. The north drive enters the grounds off the B4459 road through tall, stone gate piers (LB: 10652). The former lodge (now Haulfryn) lies on the opposite side of the road. The drive runs through woodland and passes over a substantial single-arched rubble stone bridge (LB: 10651). To the east of the drive and north of the bridge is an early nineteenth-century bath house in Gothic style (LB: 10650) with a rectilinear pool fed by a hillside spring. South of the bridge the drive runs through wooded grounds past the Home Farm buildings (LB: 10645; 10646; 10647), stables and coach house (LB: 10644) to the forecourt in front of the house. Around the forecourt are mature plantings including lime, beech and wellingtonia. The garden occupies ground to the south-east of the house. At the south-east end is a gently sloping, irregular-shaped lawn in a woodland glade. There are some fine mature trees around it, particularly beech, oak, ash, sycamore and copper beech. Towards the south-east end is a small pool and modern fountain. A grass walk at this end curves up to join the woodland walk, which can also be reached by log steps up the steep bank on the north-east side of the lawn. At the north-west end the lawn tapers into a path leading to a zig-zag gravel path, edged with stone, which climbs up the steep slope to meet the woodland walk. It continues above the woodland walk and leads to a small wooden summerhouse, a modern building that stands on the site of an original summerhouse. Next to the house is a level lawn backed on the north-east by a rhododendron bank, behind which are yews and a large sweet chestnut tree. Beyond the lawn, to the south-east, is a small rectangular garden enclosed by low stone walls. This is the memorial garden to Alick Stewart, killed at Ypres in 1915 and created in about 1920. The Stewart family owned Alltyrodyn in the early twentieth-century. In front of the house is an oval gravel forecourt with a central circular flowerbed which was formerly a fountain. Below the flowerbed, on the central axis with the front door, is a flight of three shallow steps, leading down to a steeper flight of stone steps down to the ha-ha to the field beyond. Originally these steps led to a path across the field to a bridge over the river, leading to another path up to a gazebo, now gone, on the west side of the valley (as shown on the first-edition Ordnance Survey). The two walled gardens - the flower garden and kitchen garden - lie next to each other below the north drive, the flower garden at the south end of the kitchen garden. The flower garden is an irregular five-sided enclosure with rubble stone walls rising to 3m-3.5m high, except for the north-west wall (also the south-east wall of the kitchen garden) and about 3.8m high. The interior slopes gently to the south-west and is laid out with borders next to the walls, lawns between the paths, a single cypress tree towards the east end and a central, circular, pool. A small five-sided compartment against the outside of the west wall is a former orangery. The walled kitchen garden (LB: 10648) is a large rectangular area, long axis north-west by south-east, enclosed by walls of roughly coursed stone blocks, 2.5m high on the south-west but 4.5m high on the north-east, each with chamfered corners at both ends. The interior is grassed over but the original cross and perimeter gravel paths can still be made out beneath the turf. The main entrance is in the centre of the south-east wall. The doorway has a dressed stone arch with a panel on the flower garden side inscribed ‘J.Ll. Esq. AD 1830’. Towards the north end of the north-east wall are the footings of a former glasshouse. Stone steps at its south end, with a small, brick former boiler house next to them, lead up to two brick-walled compartments, which retain their interior fittings of tile flooring, raised and heated beds and heating pipes. The former head gardener’s house, Garden Cottage (LB: 10649) is built against the north wall of the kitchen garden. Significant View: From the house front across the grounds and towards the Afon Clettwr valley.  Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 94-8 (ref: PGW(Dy)46(CER)). Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map: sheet Cardiganshire XL.SE (1886).