PGW(Dy)5(CAM)

Aberglasney  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Carmarthenshire  

Llangathen  

258102  

222115  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Pleasure grounds; formal gardens; woodland garden and associated features surrounding the house.  

Arcaded court and terrace walk, probably early seventeenth century;gatehouse, sixteenth or seventeenth century;other features extant 1840, although possibly earlier.  

The registered area at Aberglasney encompasses the survival of the structure and some trees of formal gardens and an informal woodland garden of a long established country mansion. The most important feature is an arcaded court with raised walk around it, probably dating to the early seventeenth century. There are also two walled gardens, a pond, a gatehouse, a yew tunnel walk, and remains of woodland walks. Most information about the site’s history has come from archaeological excavation, which has revealed a major phase of building work on the gardens in the early seventeenth century. Aberglasney has undergone a major programme of rebuilding and restoration work in the late 1990s. The registered area has group value with Aberglasney house (LB: 11153) and its associated outbuildings and structures. Aberglasney has historical associations with the painter and poet, John Dyer (1699-1757) whose family owned Aberglasney from 1710. Dyer wrote the poem ‘Grongar Hill’ (1726) inspired by the landscape around Aberglasney. Aberglasney house and grounds occupy an area of gently south-west facing land on the northern side of the Towy Valley, to the west of the small village of Llangathen, and some 5.5 km west of Llandeilo. The site nestles in the lee of Grongar hill, to the west, at about 40m ASL. The gardens form a series of five compartments, with each area being separated from the next by built features or walls. The arcaded court (LB: 11154) and raised walk to the west of the house forms the core of the gardens. To its north, and north of the house, is an area of cobbled court, lawn and informal planting. To its west is the pond garden, with woodland beyond. To its south is an area of informal woodland and two walled gardens. To the north of the pond is a substantial rubble-built stone wall that separates the garden associated with the pond area and the more utilitarian buildings, lodges stables and coach house to the north (LB: 11157; 11158; 11159; 11160; 11161; 80857). The configuration of walled gardens here changed between the Tithe survey of 1840 and the First Edition Ordnance Survey of 1887. In the 1840 survey there are four walled enclosures, but by 1887 there were only two. The area they occupy is extensive, and the specimen trees recorded within the gardens in 1887 suggest that their function was not solely utilitarian. Two completely enclosed gardens were formed out of three partially enclosed areas. The two eastern walled gardens were amalgamated into one, and a northern dividing wall had been erected to create the western walled garden which incorporates the pond. Today the walls of both, which lie to the south and south-west of the arcaded court, stand to an average height of about 2.5m, and are linked to the rest of the garden by steps through arched entrances. In the north-east corner of the upper, eastern garden is a substantial arch leading through to the outbuildings to the south of the house. In the early twentieth century the gardens were laid out internally with perimeter and cross paths. In the western garden the enclosed area to the west of the pond is shown with the addition of a perimeter path and glasshouse, with a substantial range of glass against the boundary wall to the north of the pond. As part of the general restoration scheme of the late 1990s, the two walled garden areas, by this time disused and much overgrown, were reconstructed as ornamental gardens. The upper garden, designed by Penelope Hobhouse, was laid out with a central oval surrounded by gravel paths and herbaceous borders. The lower garden, designed by Hal Moggridge, was given a formal, rectilinear layout of box-edged vegetable and herb beds and bordering gravel paths. Behind the upper garden is a disused aviary (LB: 80842) thought to date from 1882 - 85 and to have been built for ornamental pheasants. To the north-west of the house is an unusual yew tunnel, orientated north-south. This feature was created by the branches from the yews on one side being trained over the path so that they rooted where they touched the earth on the other side of the path. Dendrochronological analysis indicates that the yews are at most 250 years old. The most probable date for the tunnel is the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the gardens were undergoing radical transformation, including much planting. A copy of a watercolour in the National Monuments Record, Aberystwyth, clearly shows a neatly clipped yew tunnel with a path along its length; this painting is believed to date to about 1820. Also in the archives is one of a series of photographs taken by C S Allen in 1871, again the arch is clearly shown as being well maintained. Significant Views: There are fine views from the raised walk across the gardens and the surrounding Carmarthenshire landscape including southwest towards Grongar Hill. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 86, 89-90 (ref: PGW(Dy)5(CAM)). Ordnance Survey second edition 25-inch map: sheet Carmarthenshire XXXIII.14 (1905