PGW(Dy)60(PEM)

Caldey Priory  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Pembrokeshire  

Tenby  

214109  

196398  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Ponds & walled gardens.  

Twelfth century; 1800; 1867; 1910-13.  

Caldey Priory is registered for its historical interest in the survival of part of the structure, including a pond, of a nineteenth-century compartmented garden associated with a listed grade I(LB:5932) demolished mansion on the site of the medieval priory dating from the twelfth century. Traces of the medieval gardens have also survived, incorporated into the later garden. The medieval remains consist of a small walled garden attached to the priory buildings, a series of ponds and the ruins of a mill. The valley to the east and north of the priory contains three ponds, probably of medieval origin. The uppermost, and largest, is rectangular and lies to the east of the priory and walled garden. The second, lower down the valley, is a smaller, overgrown D-shaped boggy area, dammed on the north side. To the north is the smallest pond, given a concrete dam in the twentieth century. The nineteenth-century gardens were created by Thomas Kynaston to accompany the mansion that he built in 1800. They occupy the level ground to the north of the mansion site, and the valley to the north. A rectangular area north of the house, now much overgrown, is bounded on the north by a wavy ha-ha and on the west by a stone wall. In the centre is a fallen sundial. The valley to the east was laid out as a garden with five stone-walled compartments conjoined in linear fashion. Three of the enclosures incorporate the medieval ponds, a fourth the mill ruins. The fifth, lowermost, compartment is an elongated triangle containing a small pond of more recent date. The compartments are now mostly overgrown with trees but the 1887 map shows them laid out with paths and planted with mixed deciduous and coniferous trees; those between the house and the mill were more ornamented than those to the north, in which there was informal tree planting and a walk. Setting - Caldey Island lies off the coast of south Pembrokeshire. The gardens occupy the immediate vicinity of the buildings and a small, narrow valley running down north from them. Significant views - The north side of the mansion afforded views across the garden to the sea and the coast of Pembrokeshire beyond. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 168-71 (ref: PGW(Dy)60(PEM)). Ordnance Survey First-Edition six-inch map: sheet: Pembrokeshire XLIV.NE (1887).