PGW(Gm)16(RCT)

Llanharan House  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Rhondda Cynon Taff  

Llanharan  

300773  

183192  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Small landscape park; terraced garden; walled kitchen garden.  

Mid-eighteenth century; early nineteenth century  

Registered as a well-preserved example of a small eighteenth century landscape park with nineteenth century terraced garden, providing a beautiful setting to the house. The grounds include a walled kitchen garden, which probably dates to the Edwardian period. The registered grounds have important group value with the grade II* listed house and other grade II listed estate buildings. Llanharan House (LB: 13156) is a large classical mansion situated on a south-east facing slope to the east of the village of Llanharan. It was built before 1750 by Rees Powell. In 1806 the estate was sold to Richard Hoare Jenkins who enlarged both estate and house. In 1856 it was inherited by John Blandy-Jenkins in whose family it remained until 1954. The main entrance is off the A473, below the house to the southeast. The drive enters the park through cast iron gates with curved dwarf flanking stone walls below cast iron railings (LB: 13158). High walls continue to the east and west along the park boundary with a belt of deciduous trees planted on the inside. At a point south of the house the boundary wall branches north-west and runs up the slope to form the west boundary of the garden. The gravel drive bifurcates a short distance from the entrance; the west branch curves north-west and sweeps round in front of the house; the east branch runs north up the slope and on to the stable block (LB:13157) and courtyard (LB:24372) at the rear and to the east of the house. The house is backed by a belt of deciduous woodland. In front of the house a ha-ha forms the garden boundary giving a fine view over the bulk of the park. To the south-east of the house a large smooth grass slope is planted with a few isolated oaks and a cedar. Two large copper beeches on its northern edge are enclosed in iron fencing. In the south-east corner of the park are two rectangular fishponds roughly orientated east by west. To their north is an east-west row of oaks that may be a former field boundary. The east boundary of the park is also marked by oaks. The park was probably laid out as a landscape park in the middle of the eighteenth century when the present house was built by Rees Powell. It is not known how much of this phase survives and it is probably that much of the present layout and planting was the work of Richard Hoare Jenkins (d.1856). The 1875 Ordnance Survey map shows the layout of curving ha-ha, drives, ponds, walls and planting much as it appears today. The main part of the garden lies to the west and north-west of the house, on a south-east-facing slope. The house is fronted by a raised lawned terrace with a wide flight of steps up to the entrance (LB: 24375). The drive enters the garden from the south-west of the house and sweeps round in front of it. South of the drive, in front of the house, is a grass slope bounded by a curving stone-built ha-ha. West of the house a sloping lawn, accessed by steps down from the house, narrows as the drive approaches the house. The garden is bounded on the west side by a straight wall with two doors leading through into the kitchen garden to the west. A small levelled, walled, terrace against the west wall, accessed by central steps, is laid out with a central circular stone-edged pool and fountain surrounded by a path and flanking lawns. An iron gate in the west wall gives access to the park. The upper end of the garden, north-west of the house, is divided into two long terraces bounded by high stone revetment walls (LB: 24374). A further, detached, garden terrace lies to the north-east of the house, above the yard containing former coach-houses and other outbuildings, separated by a high revetment wall with a laurel hedge along the top of the east end. The north-west end wall is free-standing, with a door through giving access to the woodland above. The garden was probably largely built in two main phases. First, the drive, sloping lawns and ha-ha were constructed in the middle of the eighteenth century by Rees Powell, at the same time as the house was built. The second phase dates either to the first half of the nineteenth century when Richard Jenkins was the owner, or the second half, during the ownership of John Blandy-Jenkins. This phase encompassed the building of the terraces and the boundary wall. The Blandy-Jenkins mottos on the stable block and on a stone seat at the east end of the upper terrace indicate John Blandy-Jenkins’ work. The kitchen garden lies to the west of the pleasure garden, on ground sloping to the south. It is a four-sided area, wider on the east, narrower on the west, and is enclosed by stone and brick walls of varying height. The east wall is the west wall of the pleasure garden. There are two doors into the garden on the east side. The garden is not shown on the 1875 Ordnance Survey map and probably dates to the Edwardian period, being portrayed on the 1914 map. However, some development here had already occurred before 1897 with the creation of glasshouses on the east, against the outside west wall of the pleasure garden. Setting: Situated on a south-east facing slope to the east of the village of Llanharan. The A473 Llanharan-Llantrisant road runs along the southern boundary and the estate is surrounded by farmland and woodland on the east and north. Significant View: From the house and garden terraces across the parkland and towards the surrounding countryside of pasture fields and woodland. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 136-9 (ref: PGW(Gm)16(RCT)). Ordnance Survey Second-Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXV SE (1897). Ordnance Survey Second-Edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXV.15 (1897). Ordnance Survey Third-Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXV.16 (1914). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton