PGW(Gt)30(MON)

Coldbrook House  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Monmouthshire  

Llanover  

331333  

212678  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park of 18th and 19th centuries, with origins as medieval deer park; partial remains of 16th/17th-century terraced gardens, early nineteenth-century pleasure grounds and Edwardian terraced gardens; eighteenth-century walled kitchen garden.  

Sixteenth/seventeenth centuries (terracing); eighteenth century (park planting, kitchen garden); early nineteenth century (pleasure grounds); late nineteenth to early twentieth century (terraced gardens).  

The registered area at Coldbrook represents the development of the park and garden associated with Coldbrook House (demolished 1954) from the medieval period to the early twentieth-century. The eighteenth and nineteenth-century landscape park has origins as a medieval deer park. The gardens include the partial remains of sixteenth/seventeenth-century terraced gardens, an eighteenth-century walled kitchen garden, early nineteenth-century pleasure grounds and Edwardian terraced gardens. Coldbrook House had its origin in the medieval period, and was one of the most important houses in the county. It was owned by the Herbert family until 1720, when it was sold to Major Hanbury of Pontypool Park. In 1889 it was sold to Lady Llanover, of Llanover House, thus bringing it back to the Herbert family. Coldbrook House was demolished in 1954, and nothing of it remains. It stood in a small valley to the south of the Ysgyryd Fach hill, with a steep slope behind it (to the southeast). The main front was to the northwest, which looked out over the park. The approach was up a drive from the north front of the house to the Abergavenny-Raglan road to the west. The house was surrounded by parkland which was disparked sometime after 1749 when it still had a herd of deer. The stone boundary wall along the south west side of the park is possibly medieval. Trees were planted in the mid eighteenth-century after the park came into the hands of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. New plantations are recorded and late eighteenth/early nineteenth-century visitors talked of the 'well wooded park, and grounds beautifully diversified, and richly clothed with oak, beech, and elm'. Older park features, such as avenues, remained. A 1753 drawing by Meredith Jones shows avenues leading off all four fronts of the house and they survived in part until the early twentieth-century. Planting also took place in the 1820s and 1880s. By 1849 (survey map) the main clumps to the south of the house were in existence, and by 1888 (sale particulars) the park to the north was shown dotted with trees, with part of an avenue, and with the main drive lined with trees. Apart from the avenue these features remain. The park is now rolling pasture dotted with mature clumps and individual trees, mainly deciduous. The main drive is flanked by limes, probably planted in the 1880s, but the early nineteenth-century Gothic lodge at the entrance, on the line of the old road, has been demolished. The gardens and pleasure grounds lie mainly to the east and west of the house site, in the small valley in which the house stood. A stream runs through this valley augmented by springs on either side; to the west of the house, it is dammed to form a small elongated lake. The gardens were developed in three phases. First, probably in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, the steep slope behind (to the south east of) the house was formed into several narrow terraces with stone revetment walls. These survive along with a small cold bath nearby. Later came the development of the pleasure grounds to the east and west of the house on either side of the stream valley, either in the mid eighteenth century when 'new plantations' were planned in 1754, or from the early nineteenth century. But by 1849 the pleasure grounds (‘shrubberies and plantations’), lake and kitchen garden were in existence, with an open lawn area north-west of the house, with the stream running along the boundary between lawn and park. The pleasure grounds were planted with mixed deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs but most were destroyed in gales during the early 1990s. Other features present include an artificial waterfall and two small ponds. Finally, after the gardens passed to the Llanover estate in 1889, the area to the east of the house (north of the stream) was formalised into terraced gardens with paved walks and steps by Lady Llanover. The stream was canalised with revetment walls and a mini waterfall. An overgrown yew tunnel walk remains. A chapel was built to the south of the stream (LB: 87654). It is thought to be on the site of an earlier, medieval chapel, which was converted into a grotto/bath-house. Bradney reported this ruined in 1906 and turned into a bathing place. The walled kitchen garden is situated north of the lake, between the lake and the stream. The garden was made by Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is a four-sided irregular rectangle, long axis east-west, with stone walls faced with brick on the inside except for the south side which is open to the lake. The east wall is the best preserved with a round-arched doorway in the centre. The north wall has a two-storey brick and stone house against it (now a private house) and nearby a ruined glasshouse. Significant Views: Views over the park from the house site (northwest front). Views over the park to the east from the house site. Source: Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 6-7 (ref: PGW (Gt)30(MON)).