20589

 

II  

Designated  

19/10/1998  

19/10/1998  

Garden walls, terraces, potting shed and peach house at Voelas  

 

Conwy  

Pentrefoelas  

Pentrefoelas  

Voelas  

285150  

351493  

N  

The kitchen garden at Voelas lies E of the house and outbuildings on land sloping gently to the Afon Conwy. The peach-house is against the the N wall.  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

 

The garden dates largely from the works associated with the mid C19 house built 1856-1858 for Charles Wynn-Finch at Voelas, and after the diversion of the Holyhead Road away from the park which took place in March 1861. It served both as a kitchen garden and the upper part as a pleasure garden for the house, and continues to function as such for the present house built in 1957-1961, designed by Clough Williams Ellis.  

The kitchen garden walls are of rubble stonework, faced in part on the inner side with brick. They describe a rectangle open to the S where the garden is limited by the river. Access is from a pathway around the 'bothy' and through the buildings around the service yard. The walls are approximately 3m high and coped. A later gap has been cut through the E side. The upper terrace has a central square embayment with steps down to a raised walk, and a perron staircase leading further down to a random-paved cross walk on the third terrace. Further steps from this level lead down to the body of the garden, which is furnished with cross hedging. The peach house is set against the E end of the upper (N) wall. It is formed of very lightweight T-section ferrous members approximately 40x40mm spanning in a curve from timber openable lower section set on a dwarf brick wall, to high level against the N wall. The leg of each member is pierced at regular intervals for a continuous 3-4mm wire, to which thin glass panes, cut to a curved profile at the lower edge, are hung on metal clips. A stone-built potting shed is set into the bank on the outer side of the walled garden. It has a hipped slate roof, two ridge stacks and central louvred ventilator; boarded end doors. The S wall forms an integral part of the N garden wall.  

 

Included as a good and reasonably complete example of a C19 kitchen garden including the exceptional peach house.