PGW(Gm)30(GLA)

St. Donat's Castle  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Vale of Glamorgan  

St. Donats  

293316  

168082  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Terraced formal gardens; former deer parks; wooded grounds; walled kitchen garden  

Second half of sixteenth century; about 1862; 1901-09; 1925-30  

Registered at grade I as the rare survival of a complete, large-scale Tudor terraced garden, attached to a mediaeval castle, partly restored and added to in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The size, complexity, state of preservation and rarity make these gardens of outstanding value. Two walled deer parks attached to the castle also remain and an unusual tower stands in the wooded grounds. The site has historical associations with William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), whose occupation in the 1920s and 30s gave the castle and gardens a renewed opulence that has in part survived to this day. The registered park and garden has group value with St Donats Castle and its many associated estate buildings, park and garden structures. The deer-parks at St Donat’s Castle lie to the east and west of the castle. They are probably medieval in origin and were recorded by Leland in the 1530s, one park for red, the other for fallow, deer. The parks were already famous in the days of Sir Edward Stradling, in the second half of the sixteenth century, when venison from them was highly sought after. The present east park, created in the early twentieth century, occupies a roughly rectangular area of ground sloping gently down to the south-west, but may once have been considerably larger. It is bounded on the north by a rubble stone wall along the St Donat's to Llantwit Major road and by the present-day drive to the castle. The park is entered at Top Lodge (LB: 13317). The wall continues, about 2-2.2m high, along the east side (LB: 83480). On the south the park is bounded by sea cliffs and on the west by fencing along the school grounds boundary. The park has an open, grassland centre, fringed with mixed deciduous woodland on the north and east sides (Park Wood) and in the south-west corner (Barracks Wood). Modern staff housing has been built on the southern fringe of the woodland along the north side. A house called Summerhouse, about 1km to the east, on the Llantwit Major road, is a converted and extended hunting lodge to the Castle. The west park is much larger, occupying a rectangular area of flat plateau to the west of the valley and its two branches to the north, Cwm Hancorn and Llys Weirydd. It is bounded on the south by sea cliffs, on the east by woodland and on the north and west by rubble stone walls now in use as field boundaries. The west wall, about 1.6m high, runs straight northwards from the clifftop for about 650m before turning eastwards to Parc Farm where it abuts farm outbuildings. It then continues from the north garden wall of the farmhouse eastwards past Wilde's Covert, stopping at the top of the west side of Llys Weirydd. The interior is divided into large fields and is under pasture and cultivation. Wilde's Covert, created between 1886 and 1914, is a copse on very bumpy ground suggesting a former quarry. This could be linked to the site of a lime kiln just to the south-east. The steep-sided valley and its branches to the west of the castle are an integral part of the castle grounds but were not incorporated into the deer park, from which they are walled and fenced. From the north the grounds are approached by a gentle south-facing slope, but to the south the land drops steeply down to the Bristol Channel, giving a scenic view from the castle over the terraced gardens to the sea. These gardens were originally built by Sir Edward Stradling (1529-1609) in the second half of the sixteenth century, with modifications in later centuries. They lie to the south of the castle in a series of five rectangular descending terraces bounded by a rubble stone wall, stepped down the slope, on the east, and by a substantial rubble stone revetment wall on the west, below which is a steep wooded slope. The detailed design and character of the gardens as of today is principally due to Morgan Stuart Williams, and then Randolph Hearst, in the period 1901-30; the former doing the Tudor Garden layout and the horizontal surfaces and the latter adding stone paving and the loggias. There have been repairs, but no alterations, since the late 1930s, except that the planting has been simplified (LB: 13326). The uppermost terrace, adjacent to the castle, is entered through a Tudor doorway onto a wide grassy terrace flanked by paths. The second, slightly wider, is a gently sloping lawn with stone flagged path and stone parapet on southwest, high northeast wall, rising in centre over an arched entrance, and southeast terrace wall and a flight of steps descending below to the Tudor Garden. The third terrace, backed by a 2.2m high revetment, owes much of its present style to the ownership of Morgan Stuart Williams in the early twentieth century. Most of this terrace is taken up with a yew-hedged enclosure and is laid out to lawn, with crossing flagstone paths and rose beds. In the centre is a circular seat around an octagonal dressed-stone pier. Flanking the paths are twenty Tudor-style 'king's beasts', mythical beasts standing about 2m high on slender octagonal stone piers. At the end of each path are openings in the yew hedges, the path on the east then flanked by junipers beyond which steps ascend to stone gate piers and wrought iron gates leading to tennis courts beyond. A small Italianate pavilion is built into the south-east terrace wall. Below this terrace are two more, side by side. The lower, wider, one, on the west, is accessed from above by steps to the foot of a 5m high buttressed revetment wall with flanking path and parapet wall which overlooks the lower terrace lawn. This is known as The Blue Garden. Against the revetment wall is a long open-fronted loggia, and along the west wall a flower border. On the south it is bounded by a 1.1m high parapet wall above a massive revetment wall. The upper one to the east, the Rose Garden, is bounded on the south and west by 2.5m high walls and elsewhere by higher revetment walls. The terrace is symmetrically laid out with a central octagonal arrangement of stone columns and flagstone paths radiating out from the centre, rose beds between them. Two large yews, possibly predating the rose garden, lie in the southern half. Immediately beyond, and below, the terraces, to their south and west, lie the remainder of the castle garden areas. To the south is a triangular slope, bounded on the east by a high rubble stone wall with a dressed stone doorway leading through into a small kitchen garden area, at the top, and a small stone pavilion built into the wall at the bottom. The north side is bounded by the great battered retaining wall at the foot of the terraces. The slope is informally planted with ornamental trees and shrubs, including pine and holly. A raised terrace walk runs along the foot of the slope, bounded by rubble stone revetment walls with steps down to a triangular level lawn with two large beech trees on the west side and a late nineteenth-century sundial (LB: 63484) in the middle, formerly called the Harp Garden. A gravel path, with flights of steps at intervals, descends the slope north-westwards from the third (Tudor) terrace, partly lined with alternating cypress and Irish yew. A long, curving flight of steps at the north end leads to the north end of the upper of two long, narrow grassy terraces at the foot of the slope and to a small enclosed pet cemetery. The upper terrace is bounded on its east side by a low, ruinous, stone revetment wall and on the west by a rubble stone wall, about 2m high with projections. A short distance from the north end is a narrow arched opening with steps under it leading to the lower terrace. The wider lower terrace is bounded on its lower side with a low flat-topped revetment wall, but about 2.7m high from below, with a few fruit trees growing against it. At the north end, against the churchyard wall, is a small, single-storey, stone building (LB: 13331). Steps descend at each end to give access to the valley floor, a broad rectangular grassy area with some limited planting. It is bounded on the west by a canalised stream, and beyond it the wooded side of the valley. This area extends on the south as far as the Cavalry Barracks (LB: 13327). The kitchen garden is located on the floor of the Llys Weirydd valley, to the north of the castle. It lies in a part of the valley called Perllan (orchard) yr Afal, indicating the garden’s orchard origins and is shown as such on the 1843 tithe map. The 1862 estate map shows the area as open, with no buildings, and marked ‘gardens’ (in pencil). By 1877 it had become a kitchen garden, the 25 in. Ordnance Survey map showing it divided into many compartments by crossing paths, though still without glasshouses. Located in woodland, the garden is a long, rectangular area, bounded on the west by a wall about 4m high, on the south by a steep bank down to the valley bottom, and on the north by a whitewashed stone wall about 4m high. The east side of the garden is bounded by a low scarp, above which is a disused track running the length of the gardens and giving access from the drive. Significant Views: Views south across the Bristol Channel from the garden terraces. Views over the deer parks, south towards the coast and east toward the garden terraces would have been possible from the Watchtower (LB: 13332). Source: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 278-86 (ref: PGW(Gm)30(GLA)).