PGW(Gm)12(BRI)

Merthyr Mawr House  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Bridgend  

Merthyr Mawr  

288794  

177968  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; informal garden; walled kitchen garden; walled garden  

Sixteenth-seventeenth century; 1804-38  

Registered for its attractive landscape park laid out at the same time as the house was built in the early nineteenth-century, and for its contemporary pleasure grounds. The gardens include a very fine large glasshouse of 1900. The remains of the walled gardens of the earlier house also survive. The registered park and garden has important group value with Merthyr Mawr House and the associated estate buildings and garden structures on the Merthyr Mawr estate. Merthyr Mawr House (LB: 11323) is situated on a south-south-east facing slope on the north side of the Ogmore river valley, a short distance from the southern edge of Bridgend. It lies within a medium-sized landscape park designed and planted between 1806 and 1838 by Sir John Nicholl, most of the work being carried out after the house was completed in 1809. The house is approached by drives to a forecourt on its north front. The main drive approaches from the north-east at New Inn Lodge (LB: 21235) and the secondary drive from West Lodge on the south-west (LB: 11237). The main entrance is flanked by square stone piers with rounded tops and is closed by a lattice-work iron gate with iron piers (LB: 21250). Most of the park is situated on ground rising north from the floodplain. Its shape is roughly rectangular, bounded on the east, west, and part of the north sides by minor public roads, and with the road to Merthyr Mawr village passing through its southern half. The park is bounded by a rubble stone wall. The core of the park is occupied by the house and its extensive garden and pleasure grounds. The house is backed on the north by Chapel Hill, a spur projecting out from the slope. Planting consists largely of narrow perimeter belts and clumps, and fingers of woodland radiating out from the house and grounds. These divide the park into five main areas of open ground (numbered I-V on an estate map of 1813). West and north of the house and grounds the park is largely open grassland dotted with a few single trees, particularly oaks. The east end of the park is divided in two by the river. To the south of the house is a wide sloping field ornamented with a few specimen trees including oaks, pine and an evergreen oak. A ha-ha on the garden boundary gives an unimpeded view from the house and garden across the park to the south. The Merthyr Mawr road, which crosses this part of the park, is also sunken, hiding it from the house and garden and giving the impression of uninterrupted parkland across the river and beyond. In the 1850s a cricket pitch was made in the field to the south of the public road with pavilion and bandstand. Tennis courts have since been added. A tunnel beneath the road gave private access to the pitch from the house. The garden and grounds were laid out by Sir John Nicholl between 1806 and 1838, at the same time as the park was made, with some later changes. Sir John Nicholl played a very active role in the laying out and planting of the new park and gardens, providing designs for walls and fences and lists and plans for tree planting. The garden and pleasure grounds occupy the core of the park and lie in three main areas: to the south, west and east of the house is the garden; beyond, to the south-west is a belt of wooded pleasure ground extending down to the public road; and to the north are wooded pleasure grounds laid out on Chapel Hill which rises above the house and drives. The garden lies on ground sloping gently to the south and can be divided into three main areas. A lawn and shrubberies are situated to the west of the house, with an early twentieth-century summerhouse, an octagonal stone-edged basin, and specimen ornamental trees and shrubs. The garden is bounded on the south by a substantial curving stone ha-ha. To the south of the house, two terraces have been built out over the slope (LB: 21230; 21231). The terrace revetments were added in the early twentieth-century, replacing grass terraces which were still in existence in 1899. The east end of the garden consists of several discrete areas: a sloping lawn (formerly a rockery) planted with specimen trees and a shrub border, and with an iron gate into the park; a small enclosed, rectangular Edwardian rose garden laid out with tile paths, and central ornate octagonal bowl; and further east a sloping lawn planted with fruit trees. The north side of the garden is bounded here by the high south wall of the kitchen garden. Against this wall is a long, well preserved glasshouse dating to 1900 and built by Skinner Board & Co., Bristol. It has a brick base and curving glass on a metal frame (LB: 21253). At the far east end of the garden is a small compartment containing a swimming pool, the former boiler room now a changing room. To the south-west of the garden is a tongue of wooded pleasure ground extending down to the road by the West Lodge. At the northern end gravel paths lead from the garden into the area, which is planted with mixed trees and shrubs. A path winds through the woodland down to a gate opposite the lodge. To the north of the house is the pleasure ground area of Chapel Hill. Incorporated into the layout is a small roofless fifteenth-century chapel, St Roque's Chapel (scheduled monument GM247) which stands within a small Iron Age fort (scheduled monument GM248; LB: 21229). The woodland grounds cover the hill, with two fingers extending north and north-west. Gravel paths, with dressed stone steps up from the forecourt and further east, lead into the woodland, and most are still open. Near the house there is a considerable amount of ornamental planting, with some fine specimen trees and shrubs. The chapel stands in a clearing on the level top of the hill with a lawn in front of it that was formerly laid out as a rockery. All that remains of this is a small stone-lined rectangular pool. From here a path leads westwards to an overgrown and partly destroyed rockery in a hollow area on the low ridge at the west end of the woodland. Some ferns, ornamental conifers, privet and lumps of water-worn limestone indicate former planting and layout. Above is the stone stump of a former summerhouse which is shown on the 1875-77 Ordnance Survey map. A lower path winds southwards from here through the wood near its west boundary towards a ruined stone building known as the 'milk house', off the path on the edge of the wood. The kitchen garden was built by Sir John Nicholl at the same time as, or soon after, the building of the house and stable court, between 1806 and 1838. It is a rectangular walled enclosure (LB: 21233) extending eastwards from the stable court, lying between the main drive on the north and the garden to the south. Its east wall extends southwards to form the east boundary of the garden. The brick and stone back wall of the stable block forms the west side. The walls stand to about 3.5m-5m high, and are built of stone on the outside and large bricks on the inside except on the south wall, which is of stone throughout. The north wall has been raised with smaller bricks adding about 0.5m-1m to the original height. There are stone lean-to bothies against the outside of the east end of the north wall. Doors or gates are situated towards the east and west ends of the north and south walls. The interior - still in use - is laid out with lawns, vegetable beds, perimeter paths and a north-south gravel path leading to the door to the glasshouse. Along the north wall, which retains much of its whitewashing, are the brick footings of a former cucumber house and vinery to the east, with vine arches at ground level. In the north-east corner are the brick walls of a sunken, roofless former pit bed. Against the outside of the south wall is the long, well-preserved glasshouse dating to 1900. The gardens of Old Merthyr Mawr Hall The gardens of old Merthyr Mawr Hall are located at the south-western edge of Merthyr Mawr Park. They comprise several walled compartments and are the former gardens of Merthyr Mawr Hall, the house that preceded the present one, which was situated on or to the south of the present Home Farm (LB: 21240). An estate map of 1794 shows a walled 'pleasure ground' to the south, and a 'garden' and 'orchard' to the north. These enclosures correspond to those that remain today. Their rubble stone walls still stand although all interior layout has gone. They occupy an elongated rectangular area orientated north-west by south-east, with the park boundary wall forming their western side. The southern end is divided into two compartments, the western one L-shaped, with doorways between them. A doorway near the east end of the north wall leads into the largest compartment to the north. Significant View: The ha-ha allows an unimpeded view from the house and garden southwards across the park. There is a fine view from the house south-westwards to the ruins of Ogmore Castle. Planting was designed to frame this view. A painting by Mary de la Beche Nicholl of 1867 shows island beds and bedding on the lawn and a view framed by trees to Ogmore Castle. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 14-18 (ref: PGW(Gm)12(BRI)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XL (1876). Ordnance Survey second-edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XL.10 (1897).