PGW(Gm)52(NEP)

Margam Park  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Neath Port Talbot  

Margam  

281010  

186166  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Deer and landscape park; pleasure grounds; gardens; former kitchen garden  

Twelfth-fifteenth century; 1540-late seventeenth century; 1786-90; 1830-40; 1920s; 1950s  

Margam Park is registered grade I as a multi-layered site of outstanding historical importance. It includes prehistoric and Cistercian abbey remains, and has Tudor, eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century garden and landscaping phases. Of particular importance are the very fine walled deer park, the banqueting house facade, the outstanding Georgian orangery, the Citrus House and the nineteenth-century gardens with their fine collection of trees and shrubs. The late 1940s garden by Ralph Hancock at Twyn-yr-hydd is a delightful and well preserved period piece within the park. The registered park and garden shares important group value with the scheduled monuments and the many listed buildings of historic significance to the Margam estate. Margam Castle (LB: 14170) is a nineteenth-century Tudor-Gothic mansion designed by the architect Thomas Hopper (1776-1856), for Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-90). It is set in a large park on the east side of Swansea Bay, to the south-east of Port Talbot. The spot was deliberately chosen for its historic associations and picturesque position at the foot of a wooded historic hill, with the ruins of Margam Abbey and the eighteenth-century orangery visible to the west. It is a large park of varying character situated between the ridge of Mynydd Margam, to the north and north-east, and the (now industrialised) coastal plain to the west. The site is an ancient one with remains of prehistoric, early historic, Cistercian and later settlement. The park has origins in the Tudor period, if not earlier. The park is roughly triangular and is almost completely surrounded by a substantial rubble stone wall, in places ruinous though parts of it, particularly along the A48 on the south side, are rebuilt. (nprn 19296). The park underwent many changes but Talbot transformed it from 1828 onwards. The park can be divided into three main areas. Each part of the park is different in character and use. On Hall’s estate map of 1814 the area to the south of the house is called the Little Park, that to the east the Great Park and that on the higher ground the Upper Park. First, there is the low-lying ground of the southern half of the park, bounded on the west by the grounds and gardens and on the north by the steep ridge of Craig y Lodge. It is transected by the former main drive from a grand entrance flanked by two lodges (LB: 14168) on the east side of the park. This drive was made by C.R.M. Talbot in 1840 and was deliberately routed to give glimpses of the castle as one approached. The drive runs north-westwards from the entrance across open ground, past Furzemill Pond. It then runs below the Home Plantation of pines, on the right, and past New Pond (created 1926) on the left before arriving at the east end of the mansion, where one branch leads to the stable court and the other to the forecourt on the north side of the house. The second main area of the park lies to the north and north-west of the house and is very different in character to the first. It consists of a wooded valley running northwards from the north side of the gardens and a hill, Mynydd y Castell, behind the house, with an Iron Age hillfort on top of it (scheduled monument GM162). The floor of the southern end of the valley is occupied by a triangular lake. The former west drive runs northwards from the forecourt along the east side of the lake around its north end, along the west side and then westwards to the park boundary to West Lodge (LB14164) designed by Edward Haycock and built in the early 1840s. At the north end of the lake the drive passes over a single-arched stone bridge. The stream below it is ornamented with a stepped cascade. Features in this part of the park include the ruins of a monastic mill, Cryke mill on the west side of the lake; the ruins of Hen Eglwys, or Cryke chapel (scheduled monument GM163; LB: 14155) a fifteenth-century church on a knoll on the mixed woodland slopes; a stone bath house for the abbey monks; the Lady’s Seat, an ornamental feature on a track flanking the stream north of the lake; and ‘Hen Gastell, the footings of an old stone building on the craggy south end of the hillfort giving spectacular views across the park and the Bristol Channel beyond. The third area of the park is the Upper Park, on the north, a roughly triangular area on a high, gently rolling plateau above the ridge, with a valley, Cwm Philip, along its north-west side. This area has always been labelled ‘Deer Park’ by the Ordnance Survey. It predates the present park, its earthwork boundary visible along Craig y Lodge. A herd of deer is still kept in the park. On the top of the steep, gorse-covered Craig y Lodge scarp is the ‘Bro’ monument, a modern construction of a standing stone inscribed with ‘bro’ set on a square viewing platform, standing next to the remains of Lodge Isaf. In the east wall is the site of Lodge Uchaf. Both are shown on the OS 1876 map but there seems never to have been lodge at the latter. The park is now in use as a country park given over to various recreational pursuits. The gardens lie mainly to the west of the house, in an elongated strip of ground from the house to just west of the orangery (LB: 14152). The ground slopes down from the house, levelling out before reaching the remains of the abbey (scheduled monument GM005). The gardens have a long history and have undergone several transformations (see long description in Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan (2000) for a history of the gardens). It is likely that utilitarian gardens and orchards were attached to the Cistercian monastery, but the first mention of gardens is in 1661 with records of a gardener and the building of various garden walls. By the 1870s the gardens were notable enough to be written about in gardening journals. The gardens fall into three main areas: the terrace (LB: 14163) around the house, the sloping ground to the west, and the level ground around the abbey ruins and orangery. The terrace is massive and wide, heavily and ornately built, revetted with stone, extending from the south and west fronts of the house. Both sides are laid out with square flowerbeds (a reinstatement of the nineteeth-century pattern), each flanked with narrow strips of lawn. Gravel paths run down the long sides of each terrace side. The sloping ground to the west is mostly grassed, laid out informally and planted with a mixture of specimen trees and shrubs, with pines, oaks and rhododendrons dominating. The area is bounded on the north and south sides by stone revetment walls. A wide central broadwalk forms a grand, axial approach to the house, with a flights of steps (LB: 23266) at the top of the walk focused on the west front of the house. Down the north side are the remains of a water garden. The third area is the flat ground to the west of the slope, lying to the south-west of the lake. This is dominated by the eighteenth-century orangery (LB: 14152) the dramatic centrepiece to the gardens, and by the remains of Margam Abbey to its north and north-east. Around them are informal grounds laid out mainly to lawn and planted with specimen trees and shrubs. A gravel path runs east-west past the orangery to the west of which it circles the western end of the garden. The garden is bounded on the south by a wall and a ha-ha. In the south-western corner of the garden is a late nineteenth-century house, Park House, built for the head gardener. The great walk up to the mansion continues westwards towards the orangery becoming more informal across tree-planted lawn. The path splits into two narrower branches leading to the ruined chapter house (LB: 14149) and the ruins of the great abbey church (LB: 14148) to its north, the southern one leading to the east end of the orangery. The west end of the garden is an open, wooded area. The former kitchen garden was built in the 1830s and is located along the north-west edge of the gardens bounded on its north side by the lane to the church. It was developed on the site of the old village of Margam (15356), the public road to the church being rerouted around its north side. The garden forms an irregular rectangle of 5 acres (2ha), long axis east by west, tapering at each end. Its walls, between 3.5 and 4.5m high, are of varying character and may be of several phases (LB: 14162). Along the south side of the kitchen garden, is a long, lean-to glasshouse, the Citrus House, dating to c.1800 (LB: 23264). The interior is divided into different areas. The east end is partly laid out as three large, grass terraces, with central flights of steps between them, supporting geometric flower beds. At the east end on the upper terrace is a dry, stone-lined water channel, possibly of monastic origin, running north-south. There is a yard on the north side of the garden. On the south side is a row of single-storey lean-to bothies built against the stone back wall of a long, lean-to glasshouse dating to about 1890. Other glasshouses have gone and much of the space is occupied by polytunnels. The west area is divided into quadrants by paths following the layout on the first-edition Ordnance Survey (1883). The building of Twyn-yr-hydd (LB: 23263) at the southern end of the park in the early 1890s has introduced a separate entity within the park and one with its own special character. It was built in the 1890s by Emily Charlotte Talbot for her land agent, Edward Knox. The house is approached by a drive from the south. The entrance (LB 23281) is flanked by well built, coursed, dry-stone walls and higher square piers with dressed stone corners. These, and the associated walls, which incorporate claire-voies, are of Cotswold stone and are contemporary with and in the same style as those in the walled garden to the north of the house. To the south of the house is a gravel path next to the house and then a sloping lawn, with mixed trees at the east end. On the garden boundary there is no barrier, only a few trees and rhododendrons. To the west of the house is a levelled lawn, originally for tennis, and a large tree stump. To the north of the house the character is quite different. Here there is a walled, rectangular garden next to the house, beautifully constructed in Arts and Crafts style. This garden was designed by Cardiff born garden designer, Ralph Hancock (1893-1950). The 1918 (surveyed 1914) Ordnance Survey map shows the gardens with a layout much as it is today. The 1942 Sale Particulars have Twyn-yr-hydd as a separate residential and sporting estate, including 313 acres of the eastern end of the park. They describe a gravel terrace and lawn with circular rose bed on the south side of the house; the grounds ‘interspersed’ with masses of hydrangeas, laurels, holly and rhododendrons; a part walled kitchen garden, including a heated vinery, cold frames and a lean-to glasshouse (all gone) and a range of potting sheds. To the west was a tennis lawn and herbaceous border. There is no mention of the walled garden north of the house. This was made, together with a new ha-ha and the entrance and walls to the east of the house, in the late 1940s, when Sir David Evans Bevan, who lived at Twyn yr Hydd at the time, commissioned the garden designer Ralph Hancock to redesign its garden. Significant Views: From the knoll at Hen Eglwys, or Cryke chapel, from which there are spectacular panoramic views over the park and surrounding area. From the Craig y Lodge scarp and all along the ridge top, there are magnificent, panoramic views over the park, Swansea Bay and beyond. From the position of the ruins of Hen Castell overlooking the park and surrounding area. Views south from the house and garden terrace. Facing in either direction along the Broadwalk between the mansion and the orangery. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 102-113 (ref: PGW(Gm)52(NEP)). Ordnance Survey First Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXIII.NW (1876). Ordnance Survey Second Edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXIII.7 (1897). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton