PGW(C)2(DEN)

Bodelwyddan Castle  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Denbighshire  

Bodelwyddan  

300160  

374596  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Medium sized landscape park; pleasure grounds; formal former kitchen garden;  

Eighteenth century, nineteenth century, with twentieth-century additions.  

Bodelwyddan is registered as a well preserved example of an eighteenth and nineteenth century landscape park, with later Arts & Crafts garden (c.1910) by the well-known garden designer Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933). The registered area shares important group value with Bodelwyddan Castle, for which it provides the setting, and the numerous estate buildings of contemporary date, including the associated estate model village and the church of St Margaret’s (the Marble Church). There is also group value with the scheduled First World War practice trenches (FL186) located within the parkland. Bodelwyddan Castle (LB: 1383) a sprawling castellated mansion, is situated to the south-east of Abergele. The park originated in the eighteenth century, but took on its present form in the nineteenth, with the building of the massive boundary walls and lodges in the 1820s and 30s by Sir John Hay Williams. The park is of medium size and surrounds the mansion on the north, south and east sides. It is rectangular in shape, long axis north-east by south-west, on ground which rises to the south, running down towards Bodelwyddan village. The park is enclosed within a massive 3m high stone wall (LB: 80736) even higher in places, and is bounded on the north by the A55 road, on the south by the B5381, on the west by a minor road, and on the east by farmland. The house and pleasure grounds lie towards the western boundary of the park, at the top of a gentle slope with views over Rhuddlan Marsh and the Irish Sea beyond. The park is largely undulating grassland dotted with large mature deciduous trees (mainly oaks) and clumps of trees with some larger areas of woodland, especially on the east boundary; much of the nineteenth-century pattern of planting appears to be intact, though there is now more partitioning. To the east and north-east are the fish pond, mill (LB: 1495) and related ponds; smaller ponds lie scattered across the park, possibly old marl pits. The mill, Felin-y-gors, also served as a picturesque object in the park. The ponds and woodland in the north-east corner were originally laid out as pleasure grounds with diverting and management of water for streams. This is depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1871) with an ice house adjacent to one of the ponds in Coed-y-gors. A nursery was also situated there; aside from the ponds little remains today. Another ice-house (LB: 1384) is located in the north-west of the park, also depicted on the first edition OS, with a small pool adjacent. In the south-western corner of the park lie two stone-lined ponds which continue as a stream into the pleasure grounds. Nearby, just within the park walls, is a lime kiln. Late nineteenth-century maps portray five drives and entrances, each with a lodge: from the north at the village, lodge and entrance now destroyed by the A55; from the north-east, near the A55 and just north of the mill; from the south-east on the B5381, at Bryn Celyn Lodge (LB: 80738); from the south, at Lodge Bach, also on the B5381; and from Glascoed Lodge (LB: 20897), also on the B5381, once the main south drive. The main pleasure garden lies to the south of the castle. It is focused on a large walled garden with ornamental elements laid out by Sir John Hay Williams in the first quarter of the nineteenth-century. It is an elongated inverted D-shaped area, long axis north-east by south-west, surrounded by a high brick wall (LB: 80759) around all but the south-east side which is open to the park. A two-storey gardener’s bothy stands against the west side. The southern half of the walled garden was remodelled in Arts and Crafts style by Thomas Mawson in about 1910. Of the entire circuit of garden walls, only the part on the west side was retained; on the east side Mawson built a low wall so visitors to the garden could enjoy the views across the landscape. Mawson commented: 'I replanned the upper part of the garden behind the castle and carried out some necessary improvements on a very difficult site. The soil was sparse, resting upon limestone, demanding great care and knowledge in the choice of shrubs and plants; but here again a fair measure of success rewarded our efforts'. This part of the gardens takes the form of four compartments surrounded by clipped yew hedges, divided by brick paths with mill stones at the entrances to each compartment. A sundial stands at the centre (LB: 80756). On the lower side the cross path is terminated by a stone bench surrounded by a semi-circular yew hedge. The north-eastern compartment is divided into four formal flowerbeds with stone edging. The other compartments are now informally laid out with flower borders and stone chip paths. Along the eastern side of this part of the walled garden is an informal area planted with ornamental trees and shrubs with a small stream running through it. This descends through a series of small pools and cascades into an informal pond. On the western side of the yew compartments a path separates this garden from a perimeter border which lies under the wall. The northern end formerly contained extensive glasshouses but these were removed when the area was redesigned in recent decades. The main feature is an aviary on the western side with steps down to a large area of grass with serpentine paths and box-edged flowerbeds, the eastern side overlooking the park with a holly hedge planted externally. Between this hedge and the park is a narrow grass strip, the boundary with the park is a beech hedge. The main entrance to the garden on the east side is through a small classical stone portico (LB: 80759). This was taken from the north front of the castle and is pre-1820s in date. Just outside it is a stone obelisk (LB: 80752) which was removed to its present site in recent years from its original position on the south-eastern edge of the woodland to the south. The monument was originally erected in 1837 by Sir John Hay Williams in memory of his parents. To the north of the walled garden, adjacent to the new hotel, are two small garden areas: a cypress maze commemorating Thomas Mawson; and a small enclosed garden laid out with small formal flowerbeds and gravel paths incorporating a small nineteenth-century brick building, the play house (LB: 80754) and octagonal brick garden shelter (LB: 80747). The wood to the south of the walled garden was laid out with an informal walk around the perimeter of the wood. There is a doorway in the western wall which leads to the limekiln. At intervals along the wall are 'gun loops'. Sir John Hay Williams wrote in his journal for February 1836: 'I decorated and beautified the long south wall to the Keepers Tower and put up a gate and made a back entrance to the garden from the farm'. The obelisk was situated on the eastern side with a summerhouse behind it which is no longer in existence. The main south drive (now a track) winds gently through this wood. Where the drive emerges through the perimeter wall the site is marked by a folly tower and archway known as the Keepers Tower. An eastern drive branches off the main drive and emerges from the wood just to the north of the old obelisk site. Significant Views: From the east terrace across the parkland and surrounding landscape in all directions. Views of the Marble Church, the north Wales coast and the Clwydian Range are all afforded from the registered area. Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 14-16 (ref: PGW(C)2). Ordnance Survey, six-inch map: Flintshire IV (1878). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton.