PGW(Po)1(POW)

Llangedwyn Hall  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Llangedwyn  

319049  

324517  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Terraced formal garden with remains of ponds and other walling.  

Early eighteenth century, possibly finished 1728.  

Llangedwyn Hall is located near the English border to the west of Oswestry. It is registered for its historic interest as a well-preserved and rare early eighteenth-century grand formal terraced garden in a fine position overlooking the Tanat valley. It retains some of its original ornamental features, the absence of later overlay making this garden especially important. There is group value with the listed Hall (LB 604) and several outbuildings, walls of the formal gardens (LB 81957), the entrance gateway (LB 634), and the octagonal stable (LB 1285) (all Grade II). The gardens date from the early eighteenth century when the house was remodelled. The main approach is from the south-west, off the public road along a walled drive flanked by rows of limes to the former forecourt, now the Rose Garden. This is a small walled courtyard immediately to the south of the house, the original entrance court with an oval carriage turn. The present drive skirts the Rose Garden to the west and leads to the outbuildings and west end of the house. The main terraces lie to the east of the house and descend the south-west slope in three levels towards the river Tanat which has been canalized to run parallel with the garden walls. The uppermost, and narrowest, terrace is still gardened. It has a brick wall behind and a higher buttressed brick wall dropping to the middle terrace. This is a wide lawn surrounded by a gravel path which extends west to the large gravel sweep on the east side of the house. Much of the lawn is taken up with two large circular stone ponds with central fountains fed from a small lake, the Briw, about 3km away above the garden. The upper terrace walls are built in an L shape bounding the lawn below on the north and east sides. Steps on the west end lead to a classical brick summerhouse. Steps at the east end lead to the site of a garden pavilion, no longer extant. A door in the east perimeter wall, on the upper terrace, leads to the stallion paddock. The third level of the garden, about 5m below the middle terrace, is broken up by two brick walls with strips of grass in between. The second strip is thought to have been occupied by a canal. The lowest area of grass was a bowling green with a canal on its southern edge, known as the Eel Pond. This is now dried up. Access to this level is by a set of stone steps at the east end of the middle terrace. The stallion paddock to the east of the garden is an octagonal stone building with a slate roof, divided into four loose-boxes for stallions. The field was originally divided into four enclosures, one for each loose-box. The present walled kitchen garden is a kite-shaped area in the south-west corner of the park, west of the drive. The walls are of brick, about 2.5m high, with gothic-shaped doorways. It was originally part of the early eighteenth-century pleasure garden layout, with a central fountain and radiating pathways. Parts of this layout are still visible. In the nineteenth century the garden was used for vegetables, a large range of lean-to glasshouses installed on the west wall. Two nineteenth-century vegetable clamps remain at the north end of the garden, brick tunnels covered with turf. Setting - Llangedwyn Hall and gardens lie in a rural area on a south-facing slope above the Afon Tanat. Significant views - From the main south front of the house, and from the garden terraces, there are fine views out over the valley and down to the village church. Source: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 152-4 (ref: PGW (Po)1(POW)).