PGW(Gm)33(GLA)

Wenvoe Castle  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Vale of Glamorgan  

Wenvoe  

311934  

171191  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; formal gardens; shrubbery; rock garden; walled kitchen garden  

1760s-1791  

Registered for the survival of the bones of a landscape park and gardens of the mid to late eighteenth-century. The mid eighteenth-century rococo landscaping in Bears Wood, where the remains of a grotto and serpentine canal survive, is of particular historic interest. Earlier remains include the house platform and probably the terrace behind it known as the 'Green'. The mid eighteenth-century shrubbery, nursery, walled gardens and long walk may also be adaptations of earlier garden features. The registered area has group value with the remaining part of Wenvoe Castle (built 1776 to designs by Robert Adam) and the former coach-house and stable courtyard attributed to Henry Holland (LB: 26993). Wenvoe Castle park is a medium-sized landscape park of about 324 acres (132.5ha) lying on rolling ground between Wenvoe and Barry. The park was largely the creation of Sir Edmund Thomas, third baronet, between 1733, when he inherited the estate, and his death in 1767. From various contemporary accounts he appears to have been a fanatical improver and landscaper, overstretching his finances to buy up parcels of land, fill in ditches, move roads, and generally to create his park. By 1762 (estate map) a park of 208 acres had been created, with all the main components that survive today in place. A second survey of 1798 shows the park extended to its present limits. The Sale Particulars of 1769 show that the park had been extended to 324 acres by the time of Sir Edmund's death, making it probable that much of this extension of area was achieved between 1762 and 1767. The house lies towards the north end of the park and from it there are fine views southwards out over the core of the park, known as the Lawn (or Front Lawn). The highest part of the park is at the south end, where it is bounded by the A4226 road. The house is approached from the north, the drive running southwards through the park and then south-westwards through the grounds to a car park on the 'Green' platform to the west of the stable block. The drive originally swept round in front of the north side of the house, where it widened into a small forecourt. Historically, the park was divided into four main areas, which are still recognisable today. The first, to the north, is Waun Lawn, a rectangular area of gently rolling tree-fringed grassland planted with a few oaks, a small pond near the south-west corner, and crossed by the drive from the main entrance with a nineteenth-century single-storey lodge in the north-east corner. The second area, to the south and west of the house and garden, is the Front Lawn - now occupied by the golf course - which drops away to the west and south, rising again to the south; an area of open mown grassland planted with scattered deciduous and coniferous trees. To the south-west of the house is a kidney-shaped pond with a small island. Much of the planting here is recent, related to the golf course, but there are a few old oaks and sweet chestnuts. The east boundary, along the A4050 road, is fringed by a belt of deciduous woodland. The third area is Bears Wood, a large area of deciduous woodland (mostly oak and beech) to the south-west of the Lawn, containing mid-eighteenth-century rococo landscaping. A tongue of woodland projects northwards in the middle into which run two small streams. Between the two streams, in the tongue of woodland, is a circular mound c. 2.5 m high with a ruined building of roughly coursed stone in its centre. It has two gently arched wide openings opposite each other and a single chamber inside (LB: 26997). This is the remains of the grotto shown on the 1762-63 estate map. To the west the stream leads into a wider boggy area with stone revetment walls, which is the remains of the serpentine canal shown on the same map. The map shows Bears Wood laid out in rococo style, with intersecting rides leading to circular clearings, one of which, near the centre, was quite large. In the tongue at the north end a 'Grotto', serpentine 'Canal' and 'Green' are shown. The fourth area, the Upper Lawn, lies at the southern end of the park, to the south of Bears Wood, bounded on the south by the A4050. This is a large area of open grassland sloping to the north, part of which is used as a golf driving range, with a belt of mixed deciduous trees along the south boundary. The garden and grounds of Wenvoe Castle lie mainly to the east and west of the house. They occupy a roughly triangular area, with the apex at the north end, where the drive enters the grounds. The walled kitchen garden occupies the centre of the area, with the former shrubbery to the east, the house terrace to the south and south-west and the 'Green' and rock garden to the west. Gardens here were originally established with the sixteenth to seventeenth-century house on the site, by Edmund Thomas, with successive phases during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The drive runs from the edge of Waun Lawn through a sparsely wooded area of oak and beech trees and continues, flanked by three pairs of Irish yews, through a small grassed area planted with pines and other conifers, to a square level platform now used as a car park. The remaining part of the house stands at the east end of the original east-west terrace built out over the south-facing slope, with a grass scarp below it. The terrace behind it known as the 'Green' is probably also early. Towards the west end of the garden the ground slopes westwards. In the centre of the slope stone-edged paths, with stone steps, lead from the west, north and east to a sunken area surrounded by large blocks of rockwork. This overgrown area is the remains of a substantial rock garden. Other significant features include the remains of a fountain - a circular brick-lined pool on the south side of the kitchen garden. The fountain is shown on the 1878 Ordnance Survey map but not on the 1798 estate map. To the south are several large mature trees, including two cedars, a horse chestnut, pines and other conifers. At the east end of the area, to the south of the east wall of the kitchen garden, an iron archway leads into the former shrubbery. The gardens were laid out in three main phases. First, there are the remains of the gardens which went with the original, sixteenth to seventeenth-century house on the site, made by Edmund Thomas. These include the house platform and the square platform behind it, called the 'Green' on the 1762 map. How much of the layout to the east of the house that is shown on the 1762 map belongs to this early phase and how much to the work of Sir Edmund Thomas, third baronet, in the mid eighteenth century is not clear. Other elements of the gardens shown on the 1762 map are the 'Nursery' at the north end, the 'Shrubbery' occupying the east end and a 'Long Walk' along the south side of the kitchen garden and shrubbery. Again, it is not certain that these are the work of Sir Edmund Thomas, third baronet; they may have been in existence before he inherited in 1733. The formality of the Long Walk would argue for its being already in place. It is probable, therefore, that the whole area of the gardens was in existence in 1733, and possibly all dates back to the time of the first Edmund Thomas. The second phase is the alterations to the gardens by Sir Edmund Thomas, third baronet, between 1733 and 1767. His main contributions were the closing of the public road along the northern boundary between 1762 and 1767 and the creation of a fashionable shrubbery at the east end before 1762. The layout shown on both the 1762 and 1798 maps shows that a circuit of paths which led to a clearing in the centre was created in a densely planted area. This layout was rather in the same rococo style as that of Bears Wood. The third phase took place during the occupancy by the Birts and Jenners during the nineteenth-century. The 1878 Ordnance Survey map shows that by this time the walled compartments had been replaced by one large walled kitchen garden on the same site, that the drive now swept up to the north front of the house and that the fountain was in place. The paths, rockery and pool at the west end of the garden are not shown, and were probably late Victorian or Edwardian in date. The kitchen garden (LB: 26994) at Wenvoe Castle is situated to the east of the house and stable court. It is a square area, walled on all but the south side. The west wall is of rubble stone construction with part brick inside. The east wall, of similar height, is of stone. Along the north side is a high brick wall as far as a gardener's cottage, The Bothy, which abuts the wall near the east end. A house has been built within the garden. There have been walled garden enclosures on the site of the present one since at least 1762 when two are shown; that at the north end the 'Garden' and that to its south the 'Kitchen Garden'. These appear to occupy the site of the present garden almost exactly, which may mean that the stone walls originated in the eighteenth century or earlier. The garden is shown as a single unit on the 1878 Ordnance Survey map which shows cross and perimeter paths and glasshouses at the north end. All these have now gone, as has most of the south wall. Significant Views: fine views southwards from the house out over the core of the park, known as the Lawn (or Front Lawn). Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 288-91 (ref: PGW(Gm)33(GLA)).