PGW(Gd)17(GWY)

Boduan  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Gwynedd  

Buan  

232333  

338222  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Nineteenth-century woodland/wild garden with fishponds, formal areas and walks, kitchen gardens, small park.  

Nineteenth century; mid and late twentieth century.  

Registered for its historic interest as an example of nineteenth-century gardens with a variety of interesting features, including a wall walk and tower, ponds, waterfall, formal walks and woodland garden together with a large walled garden and eighteenth to nineteenth-century park. The registered park and garden has group value with the house, Plas Boduan (LB:4265) and associated estate buildings and structures. It is likely that the park was first laid out when the eighteenth-century house was built (1736). The 1889 Ordnance Survey map shows a large park extending on both sides of the house, bounded with perimeter plantations and planted with individual trees and clumps. By the time of the survey for the map of 1918, some of this planting had already disappeared. Since then the park has been cultivated and it has lost some of its parkland character although some of the fields retain large old trees on their boundaries, and areas of woodland survive over a wide area. One small area of unspoiled parkland survives within the triangle of grounds close to the house, to the south, as a pasture field with a few scattered trees. It is surrounded by plantations and the drive runs along its west side. This area of park existed in 1816 but had been enlarged by 1889. The main drive runs from a lodge almost due south of the house along a gently curving course to approach the house on the west. A second drive approaches from a lodge (LB: 20118) to the north through upper lodge plantation. There are two main areas within the grounds, each with a distinct character: grassy areas with walks and trees planted in groups and rows to the west, south and south-west, and woods, shrubberies and fishponds with informal walks to the north, east and south-east. There are also smaller areas of formal gardens near the house. Planted woodlands surround the site. The dating of the garden areas is unclear and there have been several phases of alteration. There are no trees of obvious great age and it is most likely that the present layout is largely later nineteenth century. The site slopes rather steeply and unevenly down from the west to a narrow valley with a stream in the east. This stream has been extensively exploited in laying out the gardens and includes three large fish-ponds, with ornamental bridges and paths along the edges, and a more formal pool with waterfall to the west of the main stream where it re-enters the garden, makes use of a small secondary watercourse. The site is sheltered, opening out and levelling off to the south and south-west. The house has been built near the northern apex of the site in order to take advantage of this relatively wide and level area for the approach, but the choice of site necessitated levelling the building area when further buildings were added, resulting in a sheer cliff just to the west of the house. North of the house the garden narrows to a point, and the steep, wooded, valley side here forms the western boundary of the grounds. Alongside the house and buildings the garden is wider, the house built on the crest of the steepest part of the slope. The house, stables and a rose garden lie on a levelled area supported by a retaining wall - part garden feature - on the east with three towers, two acting as buttresses, with ornamental alcoves. West of the house is a sheer rock face. South of the house the lawn has been levelled above a steep slope to the east now planted with shrubs and accessed via zigzag paths. Another grassy area, south-west of the house, is planted with a variety of trees, and laid out with paths and a formal straight walk. There are two walled gardens. The gardens lie a short distance to the north-west of the lodge at the park entrance. They are long, roughly rectangular conjoining east and west gardens, aligned almost north-south. They do not appear on the 1816 Ordnance Survey manuscript map, but were in place by 1889. The east garden is almost twice the size of the west, with a mortared stone wall around it, originally about 2.8m high but later raised on the east side to about 3.5m, and again on the north side to about 4.5m. The north and east walls are brick-lined, the west wall brick throughout, and the south wall only stone. In the centre of the west wall a doorway leads into the west garden. The west garden, now a private garden, belongs to a house converted from former garden buildings, including a small, two-storey, stone-built octagonal building, which is built through the north wall at the point where the two gardens join, and is now the core of the house. The garden once contained four free-standing glasshouses and a fifth against the north wall. Sources: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 152-5 (ref: PGW(Gd)17(GWY)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch maps: Caernarvonshire XXXII SW & XL NW (1888); third-edition (1918).