PGW(Dy)18(PEM)

Ffynone  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Pembrokeshire  

Manordeifi  

224282  

238616  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Early twentieth-century terraced gardens designed by Inigo Thomas to complement remodelled Nash house. Parkland & woodland walks with fine specimen trees. Earlier walled garden with gazebo.  

Elements of walled garden extant by 1830, woodland walks & fountain garden extant by 1889, terraced gardens about 1904.  

Registered grade I for its exceptionally fine terrace gardens, which are well-preserved as are the long terrace and Italianate garden loggia, all designed by the architect and garden designer Inigo Thomas (1865-1950) in about 1904, who also remodelled the house. Many nineteenth-century elements of the gardens remain and the surrounding parkland is also well-preserved. The site also has historical associations with John Nash, who designed the country house for Colonel John Colby in 1792-9. The registered area has group value with the associated estate buildings and structures of contemporary date. The present house at Ffynone (LB: 11980), also sometimes spelt Ffynnonau, sits on a south facing bluff above the steep little valley of the Afon Dulas. Early in the 1790s, John Nash was commissioned by John Colby to design the new house for Ffynone. At Ffynone, Nash had emulated the classical Georgian plan and it is felt to be the most successful of his early designs. However, in the 1820s, a major rebuilding programme was carried out. Between 1902 and 1907, the house was again altered, but this time much more extensively. Mrs J V Colby commissioned Inigo Thomas, architect and garden designer and the entire garden front and approaches were redesigned. The basement was extended to form the loggia, balustraded balcony and formal terrace. There is a small area of parkland around the house to the immediate north-west and south-east of the house. That to the south-east is bounded by the plantations of Ffynnonau Wood and has an avenue of trees, probably recently planted, below the south front of the house. The north-west enclosure contains a scattering of single trees; formerly bounded by strips of woodland, but now abuts farmland. The site is approached from the west via a minor road, off the B4332 between Cenarth and Boncath, running south from New Chapel. The main drive entrance is set back from the road immediately to the south of a two-storey nineteenth-century lodge. The entrance is flanked by imposing gate piers of moulded stone, an outside pair stand to just over 2m and an inner pair just under 3m high (LB: 15129). Between the outer and inner piers are small decorative iron screens, between the inner piers a pair of decorative opening gates. The entrance was part of the Edwardian remodelling of the estate. The drive follows the contour across the slope to the house and onto the semi-circular north forecourt through another set of gate piers (LB: 15124). To the north of the forecourt are the retaining walls, steps and balustrades that separate this area from the lawn and service drive. The house is south of the forecourt, the west and east boundaries made up of walling and a clipped yew hedge. To the north of the lodge is the service drive, now a farm track. The entrance is flanked by square stone gate piers that stand to about 2m and probably contemporary with those to the main drive, about 1902-1907. The service drive is flanked on the north by a wall and on the south by the ha-ha between drive and garden. The earlier drive from the south (later re-routed) is shown on the tithe map as winding up-slope through the plantations then heading east then west across the park towards the house or to the utility courtyard. By the time of the OS first-edition survey (1887) this drive had been re-routed to follow the eastern field boundary and is extended to join a long drive to Bwlch-y-groes with a lodge and gate piers at the entrance. The garden falls into three areas of use: the woodland areas; the lawns to the front and rear of the house; and the formal terrace gardens adjacent to the house. The woodlands flanking the main drive span about nineteen acres to the south-west of the house and consist of mixed woodland with specimen trees. The land falls away fairly gently towards the drive from the north, and more steeply to the south of it. The drive is flanked with rhododendron and other shrubs adjacent to and under the trees. A network of paths through the woods is largely unchanged since the late nineteenth-century. Within glades or at junctions of paths there are `eye-catchers' and water features. Notable features include: a small canal and circular pond north of the drive (evidence from the early surveys suggests that the canal and attached pond were constructed between 1889 and 1906); a nearby well to supply garden cottage near the walled garden; south of the drive, the ‘lion tank’, a small oval pool with a lion's head spout (the tank is recorded as a well on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map, 1906); and the fountain garden, a flat lawn area at the base of the slope, divided by a central path flanked by yews, with a nineteenth-century fountain at the centre (LB: 15128). At a junction of one of the paths within the main drive is a rose arch and gate, possibly from the mid-nineteenth century. At another, downhill from here, is a small (reproduction) statue about 1.5m high on an older base. Further east the boundary between the garden and plantations to the south is made by a ha-ha. Lawns lie to the front and rear of the house. To the south an area of sloping lawn is separated from the fields to the east and south by a ha-ha up to 1.5m high, and now approached by a tree avenue. To the north east of the house a further, extensive, level lawned area was formerly the site of tennis courts and croquet lawn, edged on the south with a laurel hedge; whilst to the north is a retaining wall between this and a further lawned area to the north. On the west side of the house is a lawned terrace with bow projection, yew topiary, and an early twentieth-century sundial (LB: 15126). The formal terrace gardens (LB: 15123) adjacent to the south-east front of the house date from 1904 and are the work of Inigo Thomas. They comprise a five-bay Italianate belvedere in the form of a loggia raised on arched windows in front of the old house, with steps descending outwards to the extensive, balustraded, formal terrace (75m by 10m), below. In the centre of the terrace is a projecting square bay. There are semi-circular bays at each end with that at the east end incorporating a formal lily pond. At its western end the lawn is reached by a flight of steps; level access is afforded at its east end. The west garden is accessed from the south-west end of the terrace. The kitchen garden lies to the south-west of the house on the boundary of the garden area. It forms three distinctive areas, probably beginning in the late eighteenth century with the construction of a brick-walled, part stone-walled, diamond-shaped enclosure which is portrayed on the Tithe map of about 1830. By 1889, this area had been extended to include land to the south, adjacent to Garden Cottage, between the original walls and the road, and some further land to the north east; the whole area totals just under 3 acres. An extra dividing wall runs north-south, with an apple store at the southern end. The entrance to the garden is now via the Cottage. A considerable range of glass-houses once lay immediately to the north of the Cottage, with a further range being built by 1906 against the south-facing north wall of the original garden, now mostly gone. Parts of the walling still stand to 5m high in places but elsewhere walls are ruinous or have been dismantled to amalgamate parts of both earlier and later garden. Significant Views: South and southeast facing from the house and garden terraces. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 206-211 (ref: PGW(Dy)18(PEM)). Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire VII.SE (1887); Additional notes: D.K.Leighton