PGW(C)16(WRE)

Iscoyd Park  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Wrexham  

Bronington  

350554  

341942  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; informal pleasure garden.  

Eighteenth century and nineteenth century, possibly on the site of an earlier park.  

Iscoyd Park is located on the English border to the south-east of Wrexham. It is registered for the historical interest of its small but intact eighteenth-century park with its fine specimen trees. There is important group value with the Grade II* Listed hall, Iscoyd Park (LB 1670), and its associated Grade II Listed utility buildings, mostly to the north of the house (LBs 85496, 85489, 85457, 85491, 85469, 85480, 85498, 85495 & 85500), and also structures directly related to the historic park and gardens. The park lies mainly to the south-east of the house with a small section to the north-east. Although ostensibly of eighteenth-century date it may have much earlier origins. It lies between the steep wooded slopes of Red Brook valley on the east, minor roads and tracks on the west and south, and by woodland on the north. The boundary changed, and the park enlarged, in the early nineteenth century following the re-routing of public roads. The park contains some fine specimen deciduous trees, though the planting is now more concentrated in the south end of the park and the perimeters due to the construction of a camp south-east of the house during the Second World War. In the north-west corner of the park is a rectangular pond with a mount at its south-east end, possibly dating to the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Another pond near the park boundary west of the house. In front of the house is a cricket pitch. The main drive approaches the house along a circuitous route from an entrance on the south-west, through an eighteenth-century Grade II Listed entrance (LB 85462). The drive follows a circuitous route, passing through a boundary wood which screens the house from the road, and on to the Grade II Listed entrance to the forecourt and formal garden. A back drive to the house approaches it from the north-west through a Grade II Listed entrance (LB 85461). The pleasure garden lies on the north-western side of the house with a terrace immediately around the house on the north-western and southern sides. A small enclosure was built at the same time as the house, incorporating the Grade II Listed dovecote now part of the pleasure garden layout. Today the pleasure garden is roughly circular in shape, with a circuit path and tree and shrub planting at its western end, and a sundial. The boundary to the west is a brick wall with a door on to the adjacent road. The terrace and forecourt walls were added in the nineteenth century. These are low brick walls, in part topped by railings. The terraces are laid out to lawn with flowerbeds. The north-west side of the garden is planted informally with mixed deciduous and coniferous trees. The walled kitchen garden lies to the north-east of the house. It is a trapezoidal shape surrounded by intact brick walls on all sides but the south, which is fenced with an iron paling. The interior is mostly grass with some trees. The remains of a nineteenth-century glasshouse range lie on the north wall. There was a separate free-standing range to the south, and potting sheds at the rear, but nothing of the original glasshouses survive in this range. There is a now a twentieth-century glasshouse on the site. Setting - Iscoyd is located in rolling borderland countryside in a predominantly agricultural area. Significant views - From the south-east and south-west sides of the house there are views across the park and the countryside beyond. Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 138-40 (ref: PGW(C)16(WRE)).