PGW(Gt)15(MON)

Clytha Park  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Monmouthshire  

Llanarth  

336439  

209013  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Medium-sized late eighteenth-century landscape park, ornamental garden (part twentieth-century) and kitchen garden.  

1790s; 1821-28.  

Clytha Park is registered grade I as a very fine late eighteenth-century landscape park with well-preserved castellated eye-catcher folly, the structural remains of an ornamental garden and walled kitchen garden. It has historical associations with the eighteenth century architect and garden designer John Davenport. The registered park and garden shares important group value with Clytha Park house and its associated estate buildings and structures. Clytha House (LB: 1966) is a two-storey neo-classical building of Bath stone, built for William Jones the younger by Edward Haycock of Shrewsbury between 1821 and 1828. Clytha Park is a medium-sized landscape park, to the south of the village of Llanarth, just to the east of the river Usk. The northern part lies on low-lying gently undulating ground in the river valley, the southern part on higher ground above it, culminating in the knoll on which the folly, Clytha Castle, stands. The main entrance to the park is at the lodge (LB: 23003; 1967) on the north side of the A40 road and a winding drive leads north-eastwards to the house. The present park was largely made by William Jones the elder in the 1790s. A considerable amount of work was carried out for William Jones on the grounds and garden in the early 1790s by John Davenport, a landscape gardener from Shropshire. He provided both plants and plans, including that for the walled garden. William Jones's work includes the Gothick gateway, screen (designed by John Nash) and lodge at the entrance to the park, and Clytha Castle (LB: 1968), a fine Gothick castellated, largely two-dimensional eye-catcher folly on the top of the hill at the south end of the park, built in memory of his wife (designed by John Davenport). Jones also did a considerable amount of tree planting, some of which survives. It is assumed that the haha was built at the same time as the new house in the 1820s. Further tree planting took place in the nineteenth century, many of which survive as fine, mature specimens. The gardens lie immediately around the house. To the south and west of the house are lawns sloping gently down to the ha-ha, as it was laid out when the new house was built in the 1820s. Apart from the removal of a central path to the ha-ha and fountain (shown on OS first edition) on the south-west side of the house, and a curving path to the north-west of the house, this area is unaltered. To the north-west of the house is an area of mostly informal tree and shrub planting around a roughly rectangular small lake. To the east of the house a ridge of higher ground is planted with deciduous trees and evergreen shrub understorey (the 'shrubbery'). The gardens were laid out in several stages. William Jones the elder, with the help of John Davenport in the early 1790s, is known to have laid out gardens which went with the previous house, but there are no discernible traces of them, except possibly one or two trees. A lake is known to have been in existence in the eighteenth century (and probably earlier) on the site of the present one, but it was dug out further and given a more picturesque outline in the 1820s, when material from it was used to build up the mound that the house was built on. Various alterations were made to the gardens under the direction of H. Avray Tipping in the 1930s. The basic structure remained unchanged, but some more formal elements were added near the lake. The D-shaped walled kitchen garden (LB: 22998) lies to the north-east of the house. Its brick walls stand to their full height and there are entrances on all sides. The garden was designed and built by John Davenport in the early 1790s (including hot-houses). The internal layout, however, with its curving cross paths, may date from the 1830s Significant Views: Views overlooking the park in a northwest to southwest arc from the house and gardens. Sources: Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 25-26 (ref: PGW (Gt)15). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Monmouthshire XIII.10 (1882).