PGW(Dy)34(PEM)

Lamphey Bishop's Palace & Lamphey Court  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Pembrokeshire  

Lamphey  

202217  

201163  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Embanked park; walled park; fishponds; formal garden (Lamphey Palace). Formal terrace, informal gardens & water features (Lamphey Court).  

Medieval period; early nineteenth century.  

Lamphey Palace and Lamphey Court lie about 2km to the east of Pembroke. They are registered for the survival of major elements of a sophisticated landscaping scheme surrounding a medieval bishops’ palace. This includes a grand, water-flanked approach, a remarkably well-preserved and elaborate fishpond complex and an extensive park. A later, walled deer park survives within the medieval park. In the early nineteenth century further landscaping involved the conversion of the palace precinct into an elaborate garden, traces of which remain, and further landscaping around it, most of which remains. The nineteenth-century layout of the gardens of Lamphey Court survive more or less unaltered. The palace ruins are Grade I Listed (LB 17393) and the area around them is a Scheduled Monument (PE003). Lamphey Court is a Grade II* Listed building (LB 5968). Lamphey Palace Lamphey Palace, part of the estate of the bishops of St David’s, was one of the wealthiest residences of the medieval period in Britain. It had an extensive park, probably dating from the thirteenth century. It lay to the north and east of the palace on undulating land between the Lamphey to Penally (Ridgeway) road on the south, a wooded valley known as The Coombes on the east, Deerpark Lane on the north and a boundary running north from the palace to Deerpark Lane on the west. Medieval records list assets which included a wide range of livestock animals together with woodland, fishponds, two watermills and a windmill. Originally it was bounded by a bank and inner ditch, topped with a timber pale, but was later reduced and enclosed with a wall some time before 1811. The interior is now subdivided but field names suggest that this was also the case for the medieval park. It is probable that part of a Grade II Listed stone barn at Lamphey Lodge, situated at the highest point of the park, is all that remains of the park lodge (LB 15664). In the woods on the western edge of the park are the earthworks of four fishponds, probably medieval servatoria, or holding ponds for fish ready for the table. There are also the ruins of a fish larder house. Within the valley woodland to the north are four rectangular ponds, stepped down the floor of the valley, one above the other. These are thought to be the four vivaria, or breeding ponds, mentioned in early records. A garden and orchards were attached to the medieval palace, probably the walled enclosure east of the precinct, at least in part. Records of swans and peacocks in the grounds implies a strong ornamental aspect to them. The swans would have been on the large expanse of water to the south of the palace that was an integral and important part of the approach. This was a lake of about two acres, now silted and degraded, beneath the walls of the palace precinct. The second major phase of garden-making at Lamphey came in the nineteenth century. The ground within the precinct wall is now down to turf but for at least 100 years it was an elaborate and beautiful garden with a formal layout of paths to the west within the Inner Courtyard and the interior of the buildings planted up to the east. The garden was created originally by the Mathias family from 1823 onwards. A partition wall, now gone, created an enclosed garden area, west of the palace, with perimeter and cross paths, glass houses and a pond and fountain. These features, including the partition wall, have now gone but some are revealed as parch marks on air photos following a dry summer. The fountain now stands in the grounds of Lamphey Court. The wood to the north was also ornamented during the nineteenth century when trees were planted and a walk made along the west side of the ponds. The walk, and many of the trees, survive. Lamphey Court Lamphey Court lies a short distance to the north-west of Lamphey Palace. The mansion, now a hotel, was built in 1823 by the Mathias family, replacing an earlier building. The gardens and grounds incorporate part of the outer court of the Bishop's Palace. The original design scheme for the garden did not fully come to fruition but was replaced instead by the present layout. The approach is from the south-east, off a lane from Lamphey village, the drive crossing a bridge over a stream near the entrance, and on to a forecourt on the south front. Just within the grounds, to the north and south of the drive, are informal water features fed from a small D-shaped upper pond to the north. Water is channelled from it into a gully that winds down through woodland to the dell, formerly a rectangular pond but now a damp garden in which the stream is braided by placed boulders. Immediately below the bridge is the lower pond with a small oval island being recorded at the north end. South of the pond are building remains related to the Palace. Formal features are associated with the terrace surrounding the house. South-east of the porch are closely clipped yew hedges. West of the porch is a fountain backed by a semi-circle of closely-clipped yews. To the south, the formal terrace gives way to a grass bank which ends in a dry stone wall over 1m high separating the garden from the meadow and stream below. It is unclear if the meadow was ever included as part of the garden. The gardens still contain some fine specimen and ornamental trees, notably the holm oaks, yews, Lawson cypress, horse chestnuts, columnar junipers and a lime as well as beech, ash oak and sycamore. Setting - Lamphey Palace and Lamphey Court are situated in rolling countryside to the east of Pembroke, with no immediately adjacent development threats. Significant Views - Lamphey Court is located on rising ground that affords views across the countryside from the south front. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 234-9 (ref: PGW(Dy)34(PEM)). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton