PGW(Po)23(POW)

Boultibrooke  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Presteigne  

330864  

265503  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Georgian house; wooded Victorian pleasure grounds to north and east of house; walled kitchen garden set in pleasure grounds to west.  

c. 1812 on.  

Boultibrooke is located to the immediate north of Presteigne, on the English border. It is registered for the survival of its attractive early nineteenth-century wooded pleasure grounds and gardens in the picturesque Lugg valley contemporary with the additions to an older house by the famous Orientalist Sir Harford Jones Brydges (1764-1847). It is further important for group value with the Grade II Listed Boultibrooke House (LB 8927), its coach house and service range (LB 8928), and the Grade II Listed entrance lodge (LB 8926). Boultibrooke House is set on a wooded terrace which faces south overlooking fields which run down to the river Lugg. The early history of the grounds is unclear. Although land attached to the original farm was recorded in 1587, most of the gardens as they survive today appear, from the age of the ornamental plantings, to date from about the early or mid-nineteenth-century. By 1822 the grounds, divided by the road, were developed enough to attract the attention of John Claudius Loudon and, in 1842, S. Lewis described them in his topographical dictionary as 'beautifully disposed'. In 1840 the grounds merited an article in the Gardener's Magazine when they were under the care of Mr Weatherston, the head gardener. According to the article the area around the house were relatively simple; the designed woodlands and south lawn which were recorded on the 1843 tithe map. The ornamental pleasure grounds, which included pools and flower beds, lay to the west of the road to the south of the kitchen garden. The garden surrounds the house on a slope that gradually increases to the east where the ground falls quickly into a small stream valley. The grounds are entered from the west at the lodge on the B4355. The drive follows a north-east course then curves south towards the house, passing through informal woodland which extends east of the drive down a steep slope to a narrow water meadow in the stream valley below. A walk curves down the hillside to the meadow. The woodland is mixed, with some notable Victorian tree plantings, including a wellingtonia in the river valley. There are also some notable veteran beech and oak trees. The drive, just before it reaches the house, splits into two, either side of a small triangular formal garden with a central pond and fountain surrounded by lawn and shrubs. This is shown on the 6-inch and 25-inch Ordnance Survey maps (1888 & 1889) which record the layout of house, gardens, pleasure grounds, walled garden and park at this time. Along the south front of the house is a split-level grass terrace, once partly used for a tennis or croquet lawn. In the centre of this area is a more recent rectangular pool. Adjacent on the west, immediately in front of the west wing, there is a vegetable garden, in existence since c.1950. The walled kitchen garden lies to the west of Boultibrooke House on the opposite side of the B4355 set in ornamental pleasure grounds. An article in the Gardener’s Magazine from 1840 describes the kitchen garden and pleasure grounds and refers to two vineries and two hot-houses, including a peach house. The pleasure grounds, situated on the north bank of the river Lugg, contained several small streams and a pond. The layout is shown on the 25-inch Ordnance Survey map (1889) and recorded on a postcard of 1904, which shows the hot-houses, lawns, ornamental planting and a single-storey, thatched garden building. The glasshouses and garden building are no longer extant. Dwellings and a fish farm have since been built within this part of the grounds. Setting – Situated a short distance to the north of Presteigne on a wooded rise in the picturesque Lugg valley. Significant Views – From the south front of the house there are views down the Lugg valley, and from the north front views across surrounding woodland and the countryside beyond. Sources: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 14-16 (ref: PGW (Po)23(POW)). Google Earth satellite imagery (accessed 17.08.2021). Ordnance Survey 25-inch map Herefordshire: V.15 (1889) and (1903)