PGW(C)46(FLT)

Tower  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Flintshire  

Nercwys  

324008  

361852  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Small park and garden of medieval origin, with remnants of seventeenth-century features and later landscaping.  

Late seventeenth - early eighteenth century; nineteenth - twentieth century.  

The registered park and garden at Tower represents the survival of features from the seventeenth century onwards and provides an attractive setting to the principal building, the grade I listed The Tower (LB: 15255). It also has group value with the other estate buildings including the grade II* listed Black Gates and screen at the entrance to Tower, and the grade II listed dovecot. Tower, a house with late medieval origins, stands on a ridge just to the south of Mold. Its small park lies to the north-east and south-east of the house. On the north-east the ground slopes away to a small valley at the north end of the park, while on the south-east the ground rises slightly to the top of the ridge. The main entrance is at the northern corner, off the Mold-Nerquis road, with a small nineteenth-century lodge on the north side. The entrance is closed by massive ornamental wrought iron gates, the 'Black Gates' (LB:574). Dating from the late 1720s or early 1730s, these were brought here from nearby Leeswood Hall (PGW(C)47(FLT)) in the 1980s. A circular stone dovecote (LB:15256) stands in the field to the west of the house. The park is divided into two large fields of permanent pasture, with scattered isolated trees, mainly oak, but also holly and a solitary pine to the south-east of the house, and a large lime and pine immediately outside the entrance to the garden. The drive winds up the slope to the entrance to the garden, east of the house. The drive enters the garden between stone walls on the east side and leads up to an oval forecourt in front of the south front of the house. A secondary track leads south-eastwards to a simple gate on the Mold-Nerquis road. Earthworks to the north-east of the house may indicate a former pond next to the garden, a drainage ditch running northwards down the slope from it, and a faint U-shaped feature with scarped sides either side of the drive. There are questions over dating. The present layout was in place by the 1880s, at which time the lake (then only the western end of the present lake) and small pond south of the house lay within the park. It is possible that the northern drive was added, with the lodge, in the nineteenth century and that the ‘secondary’ track was the original. The multi-period garden at Tower occupies an irregular area around the house. Immediately around the house the garden is laid out to lawn, with a former tennis court or croquet lawn cut into the slope to the south-west. On the central axis of the south front is a tall composite sundial which originally stood in the centre of the bowling green at Leeswood. Below the lawn, to the south-east, are rough stone steps and a grass bank down to an irregularly-shaped small lake, the western end of which is roughly rectangular, aligned with the south front of the house. The lake was enlarged to the east between 1871 and 1898. The west and north sides of the lake are straight indicating its earlier form. To the south, west and east of the lake is an area of mixed informal planting of deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs, some of which are mature. Along the west side of the lake is a bank of rhododendrons. At the south end of the garden is a smaller linear pond. Along the west boundary of the garden is a row of mature pines, inside which is a linear depression marking the position of a perimeter path. The history of the garden is one of alterations over four centuries, but vestiges remain from several periods. It is not known what gardens, if any, went with the fortified tower house of the late medieval period. It is possible that the western, rectilinear end of the lake has its origins in this period. When the house was added to in the late 17th century it is likely that gardens were added as a necessary adjunct to a gentleman's residence. A drawing of 1776 by Moses Griffith (for Pennant's Tours in Wales) of the south front of the house shows the garden bounded by large gates at the east end of the house, a gravel circle or oval in front of the house, with topiary and a sundial within it, and a formal, rectilinear lake with scarped edges. The style of this garden is formal, and would date from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. Vestiges of this period remain today in the rectilinear shape of the western end of the lake, its scarped northern end, and its perimeter paths. The drawing shows a row of trees, possibly pines, along the west boundary: the present ones may be replacements. The gates have gone, and the garden has been extended to the east. The 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps show that in the 1870s the lake and smaller pond were not incorporated into the garden, and that only the western, rectilinear end of the lake was in existence. The present-day area of trees and shrubs along the southern side of the garden was then open and unplanted. The southern end of the garden, therefore, has been radically altered since the 1870s by the extension eastwards of the lake and the planting of most of the trees and shrubs. The tennis court/croquet lawn has also been added since this date. The kitchen garden lies to the north-east of the house, on a gentle north-east-facing slope. Only the west wall and a stub of the north wall remain. The walls are of stone and brick, about 2m high, with a gateway in the west side from the garden into the kitchen garden near its south end. Against the outside of the west wall are stone and brick pent outhouses. The interior layout of cross and perimeter paths (shown on the first-edition Ordnance Survey) has gone. Setting: Tower stands on a ridge just to the south of the town of Mold. Tower Wood extends along the western edge of the registered area. The surrounding landscape is largely rural and agricultural. Source: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 248-50 (ref: PGW(C)46).