PGW(Po)18(POW)

Maesllwch Castle  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Glasbury  

317291  

240225  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; wooded pleasure grounds; formal garden; kitchen garden.  

c. 1829-40; c. 1870; c. 1955; 1970; 1993.  

Maesllwch is registered for the historic interest of its large nineteenth century landscape park which forms the Picturesque setting to the grand, Victorian mock castle. The internal layout of the kitchen garden survives, including ornamental railings, box hedging and fruit trees. The park and garden also has group value with the grade II listed Maesllwch Castle, the East Lodge and the gate piers, gates and screen at the entrance to the east drive. Maesllwch Castle (LB:17217) is sited just below the hamlet of Ffynnon Gynydd on a terrace on the north-west flank of the Wye valley, overlooking the valley, the village of Glasbury and the Black Mountains beyond. It is the third house on this ancient site. The park around the house is roughly square in shape, covers 300 acres (121.5 ha), and is set on the south and east sides of a hill, the slope increasing as the ground descends towards the floodplain of the Wye. Though its early history is unclear the park mainly occupies land enclosed from common open fields in the late eighteenth century. The situation and picturesque quality of the park were appreciated throughout the nineteenth century by travellers and writers, including Henry Skrine, J. C. Loudon and S. Lewis who recorded its 'fine situation', 'respectable structure' and its 'extremely beautiful' position respectively. The appeal of the site is captured in an undated sketch at the National Gallery of Wales, c. 1850, which shows the south drive lined with generously mature trees and wooded parkland, creating a secluded, Romantic appearance, heightening the fairy-tale aspect of the castle. The park is crossed by drives on the east and south-west sides, the former now the main approach. It is enclosed from the east entrance to the south-west drive by stretches of stone wall (1.2m high), fencing and hedges, and also by more recent concrete block walling; and on the west by woodland, The Nursery. The northern and southern boundaries are formed by the steep roads giving access to Ffynnon Gynydd. The Nursery is one of three woodlands in the park, the others being Castle Wood (partly enclosed by a ha-ha), behind the house, and Gas House Wood on the east. Trees, mostly oak and horse chestnuts, are dotted across the open parkland, some of them in rows suggesting former field boundaries. In 1948 an oak was recorded with a girth of 6.4m. Rare native Black Poplars have also been recorded. Elsewhere, Gas House Wood contains nineteenth-century plantings which include Monkey Puzzle and Douglas Fir. The south-west drive is planted with an oak and horse chestnut avenue, replacing an earlier one of elm lost to disease. Nearby, towards the east end of the drive, are various ornamentals including lime, copper beech and deodar cedar. In the southern park is a circular clump surrounding a circular pool, the only one of several that were once planned. The early history of the pleasure grounds is unclear but it appears that the original, sixteenth-century, house was built within them, in woodland. However, the overall appearance of the pleasure grounds today dates from the Victorian period, following the rebuilding of the house in the 1820s and 1830s. Some plantings are likely pre-Victorian. Gardens had been created near the second house by 1775, as revealed in a survey of that date. The pleasure grounds lie to the north, north-west and south of the house mostly occupying Castle Wood on ground rising to the north-west. This area is bordered to the north by a stone ha-ha which runs from the east drive around to the north of a frame yard, to the north of the kitchen garden. On the north-west edge of the area there is an ice-house and near it a circular Victorian reservoir, with an associated rock pool and waterfall. Paths in the wood date to the 1890s or earlier and were metalled to be suitable for goat-carts. A path winds through an area of ornamental beech and oak woodland, to the walled kitchen garden. The site of an abandoned rose garden, enclosed by yew hedging, lies SW of walled garden. Further south again, there is an abandoned ornamental garden created along a water channel, partly tunnelled, that runs from south-west to north-east through the area, and which used to bring water from the valley to the west to the garden. Below is an area of mature ornamental trees and shrubs planted on a rough lawn, which is bordered on the east by banks of rhododendron. Individual specimen trees include ginkgo, Cedar of Lebanon and mulberries. On the site of the south-west part of the house a new garden was created from the 1950s, formal in design, bounded by the stumps of the outer house walls. It features… a central path bordered with pairs of clipped box and a small swimming pool on the south-western side. A flight of wide, dressed stone steps on the SE descends from the garden (formerly from the ante-room) to a long grass terrace running the length of the house front, the ground beyond falling steeply to the park below. The walled kitchen garden at Maesllwch (NPRN 81398) lies about 150m to the south-west of the house within the western pleasure grounds. It covers about 1 acre (0.4ha) and is set on the slope of the hillside, facing south-east. A service track along the north-west of the garden separates it from a now abandoned frame yard which flanks a narrow laurel and sweet chestnut plantation, beyond which is the north-western park. The four walls of the kitchen garden are largely intact, 2.5m-4m high, consisting of red brick with inner skins of red brick of varying ages, set on a stone base which runs at various heights around the area - perhaps the remains of an earlier garden, predating the rebuilding of the house from about 1829. Entrances are set in all of the walls, those on the south-west and north-west being wooden service doors. Formal entrances are found on the north-east and south-east, defined by nineteenth-century iron gates. The interior of the garden is laid out in quarters, the areas defined by central and peripheral gravel paths edged by mature box hedges. The central south-west to north-east path is the widest at about 1.2m and is lined with rough stone edging and espalier fruit trees some of which appear to date from at least 1900. These apples are supported by ornamental cast iron espalier railings which continue along all the paths. At the south-western end of the central path there is the head gardener's cottage. Along the inner face of the north-west wall are the brick footings of glasshouses, and along its outer face a series of derelict bothies and storage areas. East of the glass house site there is a sundial set on moulded stone plinth about 1.2m high. Nearby there are iron drainage grills set beside the paths, the remains of a sophisticated drainage system. Setting: Maesllwch Castle is sited on a terrace on the north-west flank of the Wye valley, overlooking the valley, the village of Glasbury and the Black Mountains beyond. Significant Views: Extensive views over the Wye valley and the Black Mountains of Breconshire. Source: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 170-75 (ref: PGW (Po)18(POW)).