PGW(Gd)9(CON)

Wern Isaf (Rosebriars)  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Conwy  

Llanfairfechan  

268614  

375102  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Arts-and-Crafts house and garden of about 1900, small but basically unchanged.  

1900  

Wern Isaf is registered as a good example of a small Arts-and-Crafts garden designed and laid out c.1900 by the architect of the house, Herbert Luck North. The garden is contemporary with the grade II* listed house (LB:3567) and the layout of the terraces is carefully integrated with the plan of the house, thus giving a strong sense of unity to the whole. Herbert Luck North (1871-1941) originally came from Llanfairfechan, but worked in London as a pupil of Henry Wilson and then for Edwin Lutyens and W.A. Pite at the end of the nineteenth century. He returned to Llanfairfechan with his family in 1901, when Rosebriers was complete, and set up his own practice in Conwy, working from offices there until 1906, after which he worked from home. In 1926 he took his son-in-law P.M. Padmore into partnership, and the partnership was responsible for The Close housing estate in Llanfairfechan, as well as many other houses, churches, chapels and school buildings. North died at Rosebriers in 1941. Though not large the garden contains several different areas. The layout of terraces is carefully integrated with the plan of the house, thus giving a strong sense of unity to the whole. The highest part, to the south-east (about half of the garden), was designed as a wild garden, around several large oaks remaining on the site. Contrasting with this, two tiers of semi-hexagonal terraces, bounded by dry-stone walls, are laid out around the house, echoing its semi-hexagonal shape. These had formal box-edged beds and lawns. Between the formal and the informal were areas planted with shrubs, a tennis court, a stream and pond and, north-east of the drive, a further area of shrubs with a rose pergola which gave the house its original name. Wern Isaf Bach lies to the north of Rosebriers, within the garden area, and is now separated from it by iron fencing. It was designed by North and built in about 1925. This chalet-style building housed the Norths' cook and gardener and their family. Wern Isaf Bach has its own small garden, once part of the wild garden, a small triangular lawn with shrub borders each side, and a small paved area at the top with a tiny rockery in the point above. Setting: Wern Isaf, formerly Rosebriars, is located in Penmaen Park on the eastern edge of Llanfairfechan, on a north-west-facing slope overlooking the sea to Anglesey and Ynys Seiriol. Significant View: Northwest facing overlooking the sea to Anglesey and Ynys Seiriol. Sources: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 140-2 (ref: PGW(Gd)9(CON)).