PGW(Gd)50(CON)

Condover House  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Conwy  

Llandudno  

280602  

382263  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Modern style formal and terraced gardens; pavilion.  

c. 1936.  

Condover House (formerly Villa Marina Cadw LB: 17095) is located on North Shore Beach, Llandudno Bay. The site is registered for its historic interest as a well-preserved and unusual 1930s garden in the modern style which complements the house. The use of contrasting materials and the high quality of the design by Harry Weedon has produced a very sophisticated garden which, like the house, has echoes of ocean liners. The garden has important group value with the house and garden pavilion. The gardens lie to the north and west of the house, and present different design styles each bounded and separated by stone walls. To the north the garden is modern in style and descends in terraces to the shore, with a pavilion (Cadw LB: 17096) on the foreshore and wide-ranging views over shore and sea. To the west, by contrast, the character is less modern, more formal and more enclosed with a sunken lawn and pool. A feature of the gardens is planting holes and strips in the tops of drum piers and walls, planted mostly with salt-tolerant evergreen shrubs. The gardens were constructed at the same time as the house was built in about 1936. Their style, with many design elements and details common to both house and garden, points to Harry Weedon, the architect of the house, as their designer. The entrance is on the south side of the house on Colwyn Road. Along the north side of the forecourt a low balcony curves around the north-west of the house to the north front where steps descend to a paved terrace and beyond it to a lawn terrace, its upper half a sloping lawn, the lower half a rockwork bank. Further steps lead down to a lawn at the east end of the garden. In the north-east corner is a circular pavilion on a bastion extending out over the shore, and widely visible from it. Below the bastion a path along the north boundary to the west is flanked by a low parapet wall and towards its west end steps ascend southwards between parallel walls. An opening on the west leads to a small lawned terrace in the north-west corner of the garden, above it a small, steeply sloping lawn. The garden west of the house is formal with a central north-south axis centred on a long, narrow pool with a central circular section and curving ends. A sunken lawn west of the forecourt has raised beds and cross random stone paths, and along the south, boundary, end is a shrub border. At the north end of the lawn a pebbled area supports a small sundial. Setting: Condover House, formerly known as Villa Marina, is a striking modern building situated right on the sea front in a row of villas at the east end of Llandudno, just to the west of Little Ormes head. The long, gently curving shore stretches out to east and west below the house, from which there is a panoramic and uninterrupted view of shore and sea. Significant Views: Panoramic and uninterrupted view of shore and sea from gardens and gazebo. Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 112-114 (ref: PGW(Gd)50(CON).