PGW(Gd)53(CON)

Garthewin  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Conwy  

Llanfair T.H.  

291581  

370718  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; informal garden with terrace and walk to banqueting house.  

Seventeenth century-1710; 1767-72; 1920  

The registered area at Garthewin Park represents the partial survival of a seventeenth-century layout and most of the late eighteenth century design. The designed landscape consists of the landscape park, informal gardens, garden terrace and walks to a gazebo, and a kidney-shaped walled kitchen garden. The setting of the house is scenically outstanding and the grounds have important group value with the many listed estate buildings. Garthewin Park is located on the north side of the Elwy Valley just west of Llanfair Talhaiarn to the north of the A548. The park lies around the grade II* listed Garthewin House (LB: 158) as indicated on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map. It is a medium-sized park though the fenced area also takes in a large area of Mynydd-dir, to the north-east and the lower slopes of Moelfre Uchaf to the north-west. The park was laid out at some point between 1784 and 1844. There is no park indicated on the 1784 estate map, and it is therefore assumed that this area was laid out sometime after this, certainly by 1844 because Sir John Hay Williams of Bodelwyddan mentions a gift of six does from Garthewin in his diary of that year. The whole area is fenced with iron park railing, in some places 12 bars high, which would indicate a park of nineteenth-century origin. Aside from some perimeter planting, mainly oak and beech on the western side of the house, there does not appear to have been any great amenity planting activity or much deliberate grouping except in the eighteenth century a group of limes in the field to the south of The Book Room (LB: 187, a lodge building to the east of the house halfway along the main drive). These are shown on the 1784 estate map, but only two trees remain. A more extensive driveway system, with lodges at entrances giving access from different directions, was inserted after 1858 when the A548 was built. There were four lodges, one of which has been demolished (NPRN: 27187). The pleasure gardens at Garthewin occupy a small area to the south of the house - with which they are contemporary - with additional nineteenth-century plantings and twentieth-century layout modifications. The south front, where once there was a carriage sweep, is now taken up with a stone terrace with a simple layout of rose beds and plats of grass. This area is raised above the level of the adjacent open ground and is banked by a stone wall. This was designed by Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1930s. Beyond this area and running down to the ha-ha is an open area of parkland planted with a few trees, notably a group of three Abies alba, a holm oak and Scots pine. Crossing the drive from the house to the south-west and descending to the chapel (LB: 184) with surrounding planting of rhododendron, a path from here leads to the walled garden with fish pond immediately to the west. On the far side of the fish pond is the early eighteenth century dovecote (LB: 20176) accessible at one time by a footbridge over the stream, now gone. The walk to the walled garden is planted with rhododendrons, chamaecyparis and yew. The west of the walk is bounded by a stream. A large, steep embanked terrace runs along the NE side of Garthewin at right-angles with it, extending approximately 150m in front of and 50m behind the house. This is surmounted by a terrace walk bounded on the upper side by a 3m high rubble revetment wall. The terrace walk is accessed from the main, garden front of the house via a long flight of 25 rough stone steps. At the NW end the walk terminates in an eighteenth-century gazebo of rendered brick with rubble rear, formed by the curve of the revetment; mono-pitch slate roof. An ancient yew tree frames the gazebo to the L. At the SE end of the terrace is a plain opening with nineteenth-century scrolled iron gate and two sandstone steps leading up though the entrance. This gives onto an upper walk, above the main terrace walk, the revetment wall forming a parapet of approximately 1m; this upper walk extends along the full length of the terrace, running parallel with and above the main walk. 2m beyond the entrance the wall turns a right-angle to the E and continues down for another 150m parallel with the drive until it terminates at the Bookroom (LB: 187). The terrace walks with walls and arched gazebo (LB: 20175) appear to relate to the early eighteenth century formal garden layout associated with the new house of c1700-1710. The walled garden lies immediately to the south of the house and main pleasure garden area, forming part of the southern boundary of the park. The garden is kidney-shaped with walls of stone with stone copings, the upper wall being lined with brick on the interior for the growing of fruit. A fountain is marked on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, no longer there. However a set of stone steps flanked by two Irish yews is still in place which led to the fountain in the centre of the walled garden. The glasshouses are not built against the back wall but are set into the bank half way down the walled garden. They comprise one glasshouse and cold frames. The back wall of the glasshouse is rigged up with heating pipes for fruit. To the east of these is the boiler room. These buildings date from the nineteenth century. The walled garden is entered via the path through the pleasure garden on the western end and there is also a gate opening onto the road of more recent origin. Setting: The setting of the house is scenically outstanding. Garthewin stands on the cwm floor with steep wooded slopes rising up to the hills of Mynydd-dir to the east and Moelfre Uchaf to the north-west. The south facing view is on to the valley of the River Elwy with Moel Unben and Moel Emwnt as views. Significant Views: Views on to the valley of the River Elwy and towards Moel Unben and Moel Emwnt. Sources: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 88-90 (ref: PGW(Gd)53(CON).