PGW(Gt)11(MON)

Bertholey House  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Monmouthshire  

Llantrisant Fawr  

339682  

194561  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Early nineteenth-century landscape park; remains of nineteenth-century pleasure garden, wild garden and walled kitchen garden.  

c.1795-c.1830; second half nineteenth century.  

Registered as an example of a small early nineteenth-century landscape park surviving in its entirety and incorporating the remains of a nineteenth-century pleasure garden and remnants of a wild garden and a large walled kitchen garden in the grounds. The registered park and garden has group value with the ruins of Bertholey House (LB: 22918), outbuildings (LB: 22919; 23868) and dovecote (LB: 22920). The park is situated on rolling ground on the east side of the Usk valley. From the house, views stretch over the park to the west and over the Usk valley. The park is relatively small (but extended to 393 hectares in 1895) and consists largely of rolling pasture with isolated deciduous trees and a few clumps. The original drive from the west is still in use but the original entrance off the minor Llantrisant-Caerleon road has been cut off by the A449 which has sliced across the drive. The main area of woodland in the park is Garden Wood to the north of the house. It was landscaped with walks, ponds and planting. The walled kitchen garden is situated to the northeast of Garden Wood, at some distance from the house. The park was landscaped and the garden made at the same time that the new house was built, in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. The garden can be divided into two sections: the remains of the pleasure garden immediately around the house, to its west and south, and the wild garden in Garden Wood to the north. The pleasure garden is relatively small, enclosed largely by iron dwarf fencing. The main entrance, on the west side, is flanked by iron gate piers and curving railings. In the north corner steps lead down to a short stone-lined tunnel leading to Garden Wood. The 1847 Sale Particulars show that at this time an elaborate garden was in place, with a circular pond and ‘lawn, gravel walks and flowerbeds, thickly planted with fine standard trees and shrubs.’ Garden Wood is an irregularly-shaped area of semi-natural woodland to the north of the house. The wood is entered from the garden via the tunnel, and from the drive through an archway in a stone wall. It had begun to be developed as a landscaped area by the time of the 1847 Sale Particulars, which mention the walk through it to the kitchen garden at its northeast end. However, it is thought that the ponds and evergreen planting probably date from later in the nineteenth century, as the ponds are not mentioned in the 1847 Sale Particulars, nor do they appear on the 1887 six-inch OS map. It would appear that Garden Wood was developed as a wild woodland garden towards the end of the nineteenth century. The kitchen garden lies 0.4km northeast of the house, beyond Garden Wood. It was reached from the house by two paths, a direct one through the field and a winding one through Garden Wood. Traces of both remain. In the 1847 Sale Particulars it was described as a 'capital walled kitchen garden' with a fishpond in the centre, and well stocked with wall and standard fruit trees, a grapery, an outside shed, a second garden, a gardener's house (3-room), a wash-house and a tool-house. The brick walls, with curved corners, stand more or less to their full height (c.2.5 m.). The interior layout has gone. Significant Views: Views west over the park and across the Usk Valley. Source: Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 17-18 (ref: PGW (Gt)11(MON)).