PGW(Po)49(POW)

Silia  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Presteigne  

330649  

264239  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Arboretum and ornamental woodland garden. Late Victorian house and earlier lodge. Simple parkland to east.  

c. 1870, arboretum; c. 1906, house and garden.  

Silia is registered for the historic interest of its late Victorian arboretum, which still contains some fine specimens, particularly conifers and for the early twentieth century woodland garden associated with Silia House. Silia also has historical associations with the Banks family of nearby Hergest Croft. The grounds have group value with the house and lodge, both unlisted. Silia house (NPRN: 309634) is set on a level terrace, part way down the ornamental wooded hill side, facing south-east with views over a small park towards the small border town of Presteigne. The house dates from 1906. A drive enters the site from the east, to the south of a lodge, known as 'Silia Cottage'(NPRN:309633). The cottage is the earliest building on the site and stands below the Warden ring and bailey (Scheduled Monument: RD052) on the south side of Warden Road. To the south of the cottage the ground slopes away steeply to a small pond. The first known use of the cottage was as part of the kennels for Captain James Beavan, a local landowner and magistrate, who kept his hounds there from about 1860 having bought most of the surrounding land. Beavan did not live on the site, preferring to retain a house in town, together with stables, but his hounds were kept at, or near, the lodge and it is possible that the park was used for exercising the dogs as well as providing a setting for the woodland. The history of the woodland prior to James Beavan's ownership is unclear but it was probably ancient woodland which, by later accounts, contained vast numbers of native bulbs. From about 1870 until 1896, Beavan embarked on an ambitious and expensive planting scheme ornamenting his woodland with many new and, at that time, rare introductions which were labelled and named. The lodge was the only building on the site at that time and Beavan used the land to create a private arboretum. In 1896 the woodlands were described as being 'one of the finest in the kingdom with specimen trees of conifers, ornamental, deciduous and others'. The source of the trees is unclear but the Beavan family were friends, and near neighbours, of the Banks family of Hergest Croft and the gardens share many trees of similar age. By the early twentieth century the cottage had become established as a lodge to a new house, Silia House, which was built by the Whale family in about 1906. The old kennels were used as vegetable stores. During the Whale's tenure it became the gardener's residence and a large, lean-to peach house was erected along its southern side. This glass house is believed to have stood until the late 1940s. The lodge remained as the gardener's residence through the subsequent owners, the Lees, during the 1930s and 1940s and the Hills who sold the house to the King family in 1949. The Kings used the lodge as a chauffeur’s residence. It is believed that the lodge finally became a private dwelling in the mid-1970s when it took the title 'cottage'. The wood and woodland garden at Silia surround the house to the north, west and south on south-sloping ground. Around the house there is a more formal area of garden including early twentieth-century shrub planting. It is believed that the garden was created from the time of the Whales who introduced equally rare and expensive flowering shrubs and bulbs to be planted beneath Beavan's trees. The drive and circulatory paths, which run above and below the drive, pass through this area. The four different ground levels are connected by sets of formal stone steps or rougher, more recent, timber ones. On the south of the house, the drive, which enters the site from the east, reaches a narrow terrace, which runs along the length of the house, about 25m. A strip of lawn runs along the southern edge of this terrace, separating it from a steep slope to the garden and park below. To the west, the garden becomes increasingly wooded with many mature ornamental trees including wellingtonia, cedar, spruce and tulip trees. References have been found to various garden buildings in the woodland during the 1930s and 1940s and evidence has been found of a garden building within the garden. One of the summer houses was described as having ' stained glass windows, tiled floors and seats all round' and another which was: 'at the end of the wood looking across towards Paradise Farm; this was the place for the early primroses, violets and daffodils'. No trace of any of the woodland buildings have survived. The woodland buildings may have dated from Beavan's time as apart from tree planting he was recorded as having 'beautified his grounds', but again this is uncertain. By the time of the departure of the Whales in the late 1920s the basic design of the gardens is believed to have been established. During the 1930s further links with the garden of Hergest Croft were made when Bruce Jackson of Kew catalogued both Hergest and Silia gardens for the Banks and Lees respectively. The garden at Hergest, similarly laid out underneath an earlier arboretum by Dorothy and W. H. Banks, dates from about 1896. Dorothy initiated the Kew catalogue of the gardens and so appears to have been well aware of a connection between the two. A small area of parkland was created between the southern garden/woodland boundary and the Slough road and town of Presteigne to the south and south-east. The early history of the area of the park is unclear. It is assumed that the land was bought, together with the woodland area, by Capt. James Beavan in about 1860-70. Farmland, affiliated to the wood, lay to the north, outside of the park. To the north of the wood, set in and around the farmland, there are shelter belts and plantings of Scots pine, oak and sycamore which may date from around 1912, as the trees do not appear to be more than 70-80 years old. Setting: Situated to the west of the border town of Presteigne and surrounded by the countryside of the Welsh Borders. The scheduled monument, The Warden RD052, lies to the north above Warden Road. The warden was landscaped in the nineteenth century as a public pleasure ground. Significant View: From Silia house and garden across the park towards the town of Presteigne. Sources: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, (ref: PGW (Po)49(POW)).