PGW(Gt)46(MON)

Shirenewton Hall  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Monmouthshire  

Shirenewton  

347991  

193272  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Formal terraced and compartmented garden; informal tree and shrub garden; Japanese garden.  

1880-1900; 1900-1945  

Registered for the historic interest of its gardens chiefly the creation of Edward Joseph Lowe and Charles Liddell, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The gardens include a rare and well-preserved example of an early twentieth-century Japanese garden. The gardens have historical associations with the famous horticulturalist, botanist and fern expert Edward Joseph Lowe (1825-1900) who bought Shirenewton Hall in 1880 and planted the gardens with a wide range of trees, herbaceous plants and ferns. In 1900, the property was bought by Charles Oswald Liddell (1855-1941) a shipper in the Far Eastern trade who created the Japanese garden. He filled both his house and garden with Chinese and Japanese artefacts. The gardens have group value with Shirenewton Hall (LB:2818) and estate outbuildings including the stables and coach house (LB:2823), entrance lodge (LB:2819) gates, gatepiers, railings and boundary walls (LB:2822) and ornamental garden features. The gardens are in two separate areas: those around the house; and the Japanese garden in the field to the south. The entrance, with ornamental gates and lodge, built for Charles Liddell, is on the north side of the grounds, and a curving drive leads to a gravel turning area on the west (front) of the house. In the centre of the turning area is a central Chinese fountain surrounded by planting. The garden is bounded by a high wall on the west, a wall and outbuildings on the north, fencing on the east and a ha-ha on the south. Around the house are terraced gardens and informal areas. Along the south front is a stone-paved terrace with a circular pool in a wider area opposite the loggia at the eastern end. A Chinese bronze bowl ornaments the centre of the pool. Below is a long grass terrace bounded by clipped yew hedges, below which is a further levelled lawn bounded by the ha-ha. There are similar levelled compartments to the east of the house. In these are set several Chinese structures, the largest consists of a raised platform bounded by green and yellow glazed tiling on which stands a tall pavilion housing an enormous bronze bell. Its roof has elaborate glazed tiling. To the east is a smaller pavilion of similar materials, with a dragon on top; used as a summerhouse it has a marble sundial on a stone crouching monster in front of it (LB:2820). Further east is a small square pavilion, or garden seat, with four columns holding up a domed copper roof (LB:2821). The informal areas of the garden lie to the west, north-east and south-east of the house, planted with well-spaced specimen deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs, with grass between. On the west of the garden a path winds through an area of rockwork planted with ferns. The ha-ha (probably early nineteenth century) separates the gardens from an area of grassland portrayed as parkland by Ordnance Survey in 1900. The Japanese Garden lies to the south-west of the house, in a roughly oblong area fenced off in the middle of the field to the south of the main gardens. The garden is reached by a narrow path across the field, and the entrance is on the north side. The ground slopes to the south. The garden consists of an intricate arrangement of six ponds, winding paths, narrow cascades and bridges. The whole is planted with mixed deciduous and coniferous trees, bonsaied pines and acers, and evergreen shrubs such as laurels, which flank the paths and screen one part of the garden from another. The garden is ornamented with numerous genuine Japanese structures and ornaments, including a tea pavilion, two arched bridges, several stone lanterns, a stone pagoda, a stone mushroom, a well, a crane statue, and red painted wooden archways (one at the entrance). The subtlety of the garden suggests that it may have been designed by a Japanese specialist, as were several in Britain at the beginning of the twentieth century. The kitchen garden, possibly dating from the early nineteenth century, lies to the west of the main garden. It is rectangular with long axis east by west and is bounded by stone and brick walls standing to 4m-5m high (LB:24574). Various buildings once lined the inside of the north wall. Edward Lowe raised ferns in the glasshouses. It is now in separate ownership and the interior has a modern house and garden in it. Significant View: Views from the south terrace across the garden and haha and towards the Bristol Channel. Setting: Shirenewton Hall is situated on the southern edge of the small village of Shirenewton, on a high plateau above the Gwent coastal plain. The registered park and garden forms part of the Shirenewton Conservation Area. Sources. Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 139-140 (ref: PGW (Gt)46).