PGW(Gt)22(MON)

Hilston Park  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Monmouthshire  

Llangattock-Vibon-Avel  

345059  

218658  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Nineteenth-century landscape park, pleasure grounds and garden; nineteenth-century walled kitchen garden.  

c. 1840 onwards.  

Registered for its historic interest as a good example of a nineteenth century landscape park with some well-preserved features including an ornamental lake and a folly tower. The registered park and garden has group value with the house, entrance lodges and associated estate buildings. Hilston House (LB: 2059) stands on the top of a ridge to the west of the Monnow valley. There has been a house on the site since at least the seventeenth century. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was owned by the Needham family. The house was severely damaged by fire in 1836 and was sold to a Mr. Cave in 1838 who carried out the main phase of rebuilding. The park was made at the same time as the house was rebuilt, in about 1840, by Mr. Cave. At the beginning of the twentieth century his plantations were 'now just coming to their prime' (Bradney). The landscape park is situated on rolling ground, to the west of the Monnow valley. Its chief ornamental features are the plantations, and it is now largely in agricultural use for pasture and orchards. The house stands on high ground in the western half of the park and from it and the garden much of the park can be seen across the ha-ha. The house was approached via a drive from the south and another from the north-west. Historic Ordnance Survey maps show the tree-lined south drive passing through the parkland skirting around the north side of the lake before arriving at the north-west (main front) of the house. At both entrances there are gates, gate piers and a two-storey entrance lodge (LB: 25052 – north lodge). The north drive is currently used to access the house and the south drive is now a farm track. In the north-east corner of the park the ground rises to a small hill overlooking the Monnow valley. On the top of this hill, in the middle of a wood is a circular stone folly tower, Hilston Tower (PRN: 06099) which may date to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century. It is three storeys high, with an open top, and windows and an entrance on the ground floor. Holes for floor joists and stair treads are visible, and a down-pipe is exposed in the wall, suggesting that there was originally a roof. The garden and pleasure grounds lie to the southeast and southwest of the house. They were made at the same time as the house was rebuilt in about 1840 by Mr Cave. To the southeast of the house is a levelled lawn bounded by a grass scarp. A further lawn and former rose garden lies to the east of the main lawn. In the middle are the remains of a circular stone-lined pool and fountain. This feature appears to be first shown on the O.S map surveyed in 1918. To the south of this area, in the corner of the garden, are the remains of an ice-house. The garden is bounded on the east by a stone revetment wall and on the south by a ha-ha and some iron parkland fencing. From the south front of the house there are panoramic views of the park. A grass path on the west of the main lawn runs down to the pleasure grounds and lake. The lake is dammed at its south end. The path is shown on the six-inch Ordnance Survey (1886) leading to a boathouse. The stone boathouse is now a ruin, approached by stone steps and a simple domed alcove ‘grotto’ set into a rustic wall. The stone revetted lake has a sinuous outline with a long inlet on the west side, at the end of which are steps up to a rustic stone arch leading to the south drive. There are two stone revetted islands in the lake ornamentally planted with evergreens. The woodland around the lake is planted with a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs including pine, monkey puzzle, cypress, yew and laurel. The nineteenth-century walled kitchen garden stands to the northeast of the house. It is rectangular and is orientated southwest-northeast. The brick walls stand to their full height and there are entrances on all sides with an arched doorway on the south. The interior is grassed over. A low revetment wall divides the garden in two, with two flights of steps down to the lower part. This is an extension to the garden, built sometime between 1903 and 1918. Significant View: Views from the terrace and lawn across the park. Setting: Hilston Park is situated to the south of Skenfrith in rolling countryside to the west of the Monnow valley. Sources: Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 53-54 (ref: PGW (Gt)22).