PGW(Dy)44(PEM)

Stackpole Court  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Pembrokeshire  

Stackpole and Castlemartin  

197991  

195917  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Former deer park to the north. By late 18th century this had been superseded by more extensive landscape park to east. Eighty acres of lakes separate both parks from former house site. Associated with house site and terrace were formal & informal gardens.  

The gardens, parks and lakes were developed from the mid-eighteenth century onwards; 1758 - 1782; early nineteenth century; some later development.  

Stackpole Court is registered grade I for its designed landscape developed from the early eighteenth-century onwards. The parks, gardens, lakes and woodlands were developed and improved to create a sophisticated and beautiful ornamental landscape on a huge scale. At its zenith Stackpole would have rivalled some of the best estates in Britain with strategically placed walks, bridges, weirs and grottos all complemented by thoughtful and innovative planting. The water features at Stackpole are of particular interest and sophistication. The former deer park is to the north. By the late eighteenth century this had been superseded by a far more extensive landscape park to the east. Eighty acres of lakes, including some fine structural features, separate both parks from the former house site. Associated with the house site and terrace were fine formal and informal gardens. The registered area shares important group value with the many associated listed buildings and structures on the Stackpole estate. Stackpole Court lies 5km to the south of Pembroke town. The estate has origins from at least the twelfth-century when one of the earliest known occupiers of the site was Sir Leonard de Stackpole, a crusader. He, or his family, gave the name to this area. The estate passed through an heiress to the Vernon family, who were then at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and Stackpole was left in the charge of the family steward, George Lort. In the mid-sixteenth century, Lort was able to buy Stackpole from the Vernons and the property remained with the family. In 1698, the estate passed to Elizabeth, the sister of Sir Gilbert Lort. Elizabeth was married to Sir Alexander Campbell of Cawdor, she died in 1714, thus passing the estate to the Campbells. The last house on the site was demolished in the 1960s (NPRN:125). Although the house has now gone the terrace wall, steps and many other features still remain, including the home farm with associated buildings, stable block (LB: 17993), game larder (LB: 17995), brewery (LB: 17990) and dairy (LB:17991). From the early eighteenth century onwards, the parks, gardens, lakes and woodlands were developed and improved to create a sophisticated ornamental landscape. When mapped in 1864 three areas of parkland were portrayed, partly bounded by woodland and separated by lakes or fishponds formed by the damming and flooding of the three existing, natural, limestone valleys forming an arc around the court on its north, east and south. The lakes, usually referred to as ‘Fish ponds’ or, at Bosheston, ‘Lily ponds’ cover some 80 acres and are the creation of the Campbell family between about 1780 and about 1840. On the north is Belvedere Hill, ‘Old Deer Park’ (PRN: 1273) on the tithe, and now pasture, bounded on the north and east by Castle Dock Wood in which are several built structures. Early views show a tower, belvedere or hunting lodge almost at the hill summit (PRN: 44735). Opposite, on the south side of the fishpond is a woodland area known as Lodge Park, which included the pleasure gardens and the walled garden, and to its south an area of partitioned open parkland. The third, largest, park area lies to the immediate east, opposite the fishpond, extending as far as the low cliffs above the shoreline on Barafundle Bay. Known as the ‘New Deer Park’ in a survey of 1782, its creation necessitated the removal of Stackpole village. Now agricultural land, nineteenth-century woodland clumps survive along with a length of ha-ha on the north and some border woodland. This area is connected to the home farm complex and pleasure gardens on the west by an eight-arched bridge (LB: 18003) of eighteenth-century date, crossing the picturesque ponds. Early maps show several drives, trackways and paths. From the north there is a route from near St Petrox past Hill Lodge; and from the north-east is a track through Cheriton Bottom, possibly once the main drive. Both merge to cross a single-arched bridge (LB: 17999) over the northern lake before sweeping east towards the mansion forecourt and the stable courtyard beyond. To the east of the single-arched bridge is the ‘Hidden’ bridge, an extraordinary structure, described from 1875 onwards as a ‘waterfall’ and designed so that it would seem to anyone viewing it from the drive that those on the path were apparently walking on the water. Set adjacent to and to the north of the path from the hidden bridge to Stackpole village is the picturesque grotto with associated arch and walling. The grotto consists of a single arched recess some 3 m high by 4.5 m wide and about 1.5 m deep and it appears to have been built into an existing bank. Like the arch to the east and surrounding walling, it is constructed entirely from water-worn limestone. Of the many reports of the gardens at Stackpole possibly none give a better impression of the scope and range of the gardens, and plant material within them, than the description by A. P. Rowler writing for The Gardener’s Chronicle in April 1909: ‘The mansion overhangs a beautiful artificial lake, which is spanned by an elegant stone bridge, and commands a view of a most delightful landscape, including woodland, lake and park. A wide terrace on the south front runs the length of the house, which is about 360 feet, and a flight of steps leads to a further terrace extending 200 or more feet. The tender plants that thrive in the pleasure grounds, and particularly on this terrace, betoken the mild character of the climate.’ It goes on to describe the diversity of plants growing in the gardens and woodlands. Although the house has gone, the terrace immediately in front of the house and the lower terrace still exist. The extant gardens lie mainly to the west of the house site, the whole area referred to as ‘Lodge Park’ on early maps. Within Lodge Park is an enclosed area, a quarter circle, with the curved perimeter wall to the south and west. It was referred to as the ‘Flower Garden’, later ‘Lady Caroline’s Garden’. Its partly-intact walls are mostly of stone, around 1.75m high with two ornate, pillared, entrances still extant on the south and east. To the east of the flower garden is a small pavilion or summerhouse (LB: 18000) which probably dates to the late eighteenth-century. The summerhouse was situated to face the house. Towards the northern boundary is a semi-circular stone seat. This feature is shown on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map (25 inch). The 1875 survey also shows a circular feature towards the centre of the flower garden. This was probably the site of the ‘nine gigantic Beech trees, forming a circle, their heads in a dome, and constituting a grand temple’ as mentioned by Rowler some thirty years later. The beech trees no longer form ‘a grand temple’ but other plant material remains, including holm oaks, sycamores, hydrangeas, Lawson’s cypress, and rhododendrons. The woodland surrounding the garden, with its network of paths, includes sequoia and Spanish chestnut. In the north-west corner is a former ice house, constructed of weathered limestone blocks in grotto style (LB: 17996). The three conjoined kitchen gardens are located to the west of the house site. They were established to replace the former kitchen garden located east of the house in a valley that was flooded during the creation of the lake system. They comprise two main north and south gardens in a rectangular enclosure, long axis east by west, separated by a lateral cross-wall. Abutting on the east is a long rectangular enclosure. Today the walls still stand mainly to over 4.5m high and are mostly, though not entirely, of brick. The tithe award survey shows the north and south gardens as one enclosure and by 1875 ten ranges of glass are portrayed, including an extensive range along the inside of the north wall of the northern garden with rows of fruit trees in both enclosures and perimeter and cross paths. Set against the north-facing side of the north wall are two Palladian-style summer houses/stores with hipped slate roofs. Adjacent to the gardens is Garden Cottage (LB: 18001) built prior to 1875. Garden Lodge was built to the south of the walled gardens sometime after 1875. Significant View: From the house site and garden terraces towards Stackpole Park and over the fishponds towards the eight arched bridge and surrounding scenery. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 310-16 (ref: PGW(Dy)44(PEM)). Ordnance Survey six-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire XLIII (editions of 1864 & 1906); second-edition 25-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire XLIII.5 (1906).