PGW(Gd)24(GWY)

Glasfryn  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Gwynedd  

Llanystumdwy  

240228  

342390  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Park and garden enclosed within stone wall; lawn with ha-ha and ancient beeches; drives and walks with avenues of trees; kitchen garden; incorporates former tree nursery.  

Eighteenth century; late nineteenth/early twentieth century.  

Glasfryn is located on the neck of the Llyn peninsula. It is registered for its late eighteenth-century walled park with contemporary formal plantings of beeches, some of which survive, its nineteenth-century kitchen garden, and the semi-formal garden area with topiary and interesting modern plantings. There is group value with Grade II* Listed Glasfryn House and its Grade II Listed coach house (LBs 4607 & 4602). A small park was laid out and walled in about 1790 when beeches around the circumference were also planted. The house was originally central to the park until changes were made in the mid nineteenth century and the bulk of the surviving parkland now lies to its south, overlooked from the south front where the wall takes the form of a ha-ha. Much of the parkland is pasture fields with scattered trees. Parts of the original park have now been incorporated into the garden, and some of the land outside the wall has become parkland. The main landscape feature is Llyn Glasfryn, a natural lake outside the park wall, but the area between lake and wall has parkland character and perhaps already had before the wall was built. It is used both for sport (shooting) and pleasure boating. The house is approached via a drive from the main entrance with iron gates and lodge about 1km south of the house. The drive crosses farmland and skirts the lake closely then leads on to a large courtyard on the north-west (rear) side of the house. The garden is laid out as lawns with ornamental trees. In detail the garden layout has been changing constantly since the late nineteenth century. The approach to the garden is through the house or via one of the entrances either side of it, all of which lead first into the formal areas nearest the house. Directly in front of the house is a gravel walk and neatly mown lawn and areas planted with shrubs, ornamental trees and other plants to the east and the west. A low, clipped hedge separates the formal part of the lawn from the rest, which is now managed for flowering plants in spring and as a wild flower meadow in summer. Along the west side of this area is a small triangular plantation. The kitchen garden lies east of the house and dates to the 1840s. It is roughly square, bounded by stone walls on the north-west and north-east sides and with box hedges elsewhere. It is divided into quadrants by paths mostly edged with young box hedges and with some geometric box topiary. In the centre is a small dipping pool surrounded by a circular box hedge. A small cottage in the west corner of the garden was formerly a tool shed but was enlarged in the 1930s. Setting - Glasfryn lies in rural Llyn and is set more or less centrally within its original park which, together with its garden, provides a setting for the house. Significant views - From the south-east front there are views across the park and the countryside beyond. Source: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 200-204 (ref: PGW(Gd)24(GWY)).