PGW(Po)11(POW)

Hay Castle  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Hay  

322933  

242302  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Border castle c. 1200. Jacobean manor built on to castle c. 1660; formal gardens by 1741. South gardens developed from at least c. 1809.  

c. 1660; c. 1809 on.  

The grounds of Hay Castle are registered for the remains of a seventeenth-century terraced formal garden and eighteenth/nineteenth-century pleasure grounds set around the medieval castle and seventeenth-century Castle House. The registered area has group value with the listed and scheduled Hay Castle, together with its stables, coach-house, outbuildings and associated structures. Hay Castle (LB: 7405; scheduled monument BR076) lies on the south side of the town, behind the market place. From the castle, views can be taken north into south Radnorshire or south towards Cusop and the Black Mountains. The gardens of the Castle are contained within the medieval boundary of the outer ward. To the north the remains of a formal seventeenth-/eighteenth-century terraced garden descend a steep slope directly below the house to Castle Street. On the south, within the site of the Castle's outer ward, there is a small circular level lawn, which is enclosed along its southern boundary by yew, laurel and rhododendron planted on a south facing bank. The grounds are entered through a pair of fine seventeenth-century stone gate piers (LB: 7408) set in the south-west of the boundary wall. An old, circular drive runs around the periphery of the south garden which is enclosed by a stone wall. Joseph Bailey leased the castle in 1809 and is probably responsible for establishing the circular drive, probably on the line of an existing route, and planting some of the accompanying trees. A small 'pleasure ground' resulted, with a woodland area to the eastern side. It is likely, owing to the orientation of the manor house, and the garden's relation to it, that the terracing was installed in about 1660 on the house's construction. The first clear evidence of ornamental gardens at Hay Castle was recorded in a drawing of about 1684 by Thomas Dineley as he accompanied the 1st Duke of Beaufort around Wales. Dineley illustrated the north front much as it is today with grass terraces and small clipped holly and yew trees. The formal garden appears to have changed little in appearance between this date and a second illustration, an engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck of 1741. At this time it appears that at least five terraces descended the north front, linked by a central flight of stone steps. On each terrace yew or box topiaries stand at regular intervals. The lower north enclosure, behind Castle Street, appears much the same as now. The view also records what appear to be ornamental orchards on the eastern slope of the site, above Castle Lane. Owing to the extremely steep slope of this area today, and to the often 'inaccuracies' of such views it is possible that this orchard actually lay to the south of the Castle, and therefore out of view, either within the outer ward, where it would have been on a level terrace, or beyond the southern site boundary, Oxford Road, in the area where a substantial orchard was recorded on the 1888 Ordnance Survey map. The 1888 Ordnance Survey map also records a walled kitchen garden in this area (shown as ‘Castle Gardens’), some of the walls of which remain (the location of ‘Castle Gardens’ is outside the registered area). Significant Views: From the castle views can be taken north into south Radnorshire or south towards Cusop and the Black Mountains. Source: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 124-6 (ref: PGW Po11(POW)).