PGW(Gd)52(GWY)

Vaynol  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Gwynedd  

Pentir  

253440  

369273  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; formal gardens; kitchen gardens.  

Late sixteenth and early seventeenth century; 1820s; around 1900.  

Vaynol is located on the Menai Strait to the south-west of Bangor. It is registered for its well-preserved walled and terraced Elizabethan garden which survives at the centre of a superb, walled, coastal landscape park, with recently restored lake, in an outstanding setting with the Strait on one side and Snowdonia on the other. There are also later formal gardens and kitchen gardens, a large model farm, various park buildings including a mausoleum, viewing tower and boat house, and good surviving plantings along the main drive. There is important group value with Grade I Listed, eighteenth-century, Vaynol Hall (LB4173) and its sixteenth-century predecessor Vaynol Old Hall (LB 4166), together with numerous Grades II and II* Listed ancillary, estate, farm and religious buildings around both, as well as a range of Grades I, II and II* Listed structures linked to the park and gardens. The designed landscape also has historic significance as the former private estate of the wealthy and locally prominent Assherton (later Duff) family who owned the Dinorwic quarries. The present park was laid out in the 1820s when it came into the hands of Thomas Assherton who established the park, initially as a fox-hunting estate, and was continually improved throughout the century. But it occupies a site with a longer history of construction and landscape design and was originally a possession of the Bishops of Bangor. The park is roughly oval on plan and is surrounded by a high stone wall dating from the 1860s (Grade II Listed, LBs 18344 & 18910). It is bounded on the west by the Menai Strait, on the south by the mouth of the Afon Heulyn, on the east by the A487 and B4547, and on the north by woodland and recent developments carved out of it in the north-east corner. There were once deer in the park and a menagerie of exotic animals in various enclosures. The park layout today is much as it was in the nineteenth century, with wooded areas dispersed in lush parkland dotted with oak trees, sloping gently to the Strait on the west and spreading out below the view of Snowdonia on the east. The configuration of woodland is largely unchanged. Some of it is managed for timber and replanted, mostly within or around the original wooded areas. The southern part is rather more fragmented as there are several houses within it in separate ownership. An area on the north-east, sold to become a business park, retains most of its original woodland. The largest area of woodland is in the north corner of the park, present in the 1770s, which now encloses the Grade II Listed Mausoleum (LB 4207). In woodland at Coed y Twr a Grade II Listed folly tower was built on a high point in the park, whence a view over the Strait could be obtained (LB 4204). There were once five entrances to the park. All survive though only two, on the south-east side of the A487, now have drives in use leading to the house. The main entrance is the northernmost with Grade II Listed Grand Lodge and an arched entrance over double iron gates and side pedestrian gates (LBs 4199 & 4200). The drive, first passing through a cutting, is lined with different varieties of trees. It arrived at the house at a turning circle at its front until replaced by a new main entrance on its north-east side. The southern drive off the A487 begins at the Grade II Listed entrance gate piers (LB 18926) by Bryntirion Lodge before approaching Grade II* Listed Bryntirion, one of the most important houses in the park (LB 14924). A forked branch approaches the Hall. From near the entrance a branch drive follows a route round the south corner of the park to the Grade II Listed boat house at the dock on the Strait and the nearby cottage, Ty Glo (LBs 4205-6), one of several stone-built estate cottages. Near the Bryntirion entrance is another, now an access drive to Grade II Listed estate house Werngogas (LB 4202). There is a rear entrance, on the north-east, with Grade II Listed lodge and gate piers (LB 4201). This drive leads to the farm buildings, and also links with the business park. There is also a drive from the dock. Around the scattered houses and buildings is a system of drives and tracks mostly in place by 1855. Several stretches of water were dotted across the park. The largest to survive is the lake with three artificial islands and a boat house, located just south of the Hall. Others lie nearby, north-east of the drive, and in Hendre-Las covert, and in Sealpond Wood in the business park area, and elsewhere there. The gardens divide broadly into three areas: the garden of the Old Hall, the Water Garden, which lies between old and new houses, and the Rose Garden, at the side of the main house; all are enclosed by stone walls. The Grade II* Listed Old Hall garden, laid out as grassy, walled terraces north of the front drive way to the Hall, is the earliest garden with possible Elizabethan origins, and is unusually well-preserved (LB 4169). The original enclosing wall partially survives, 3m or more high, along with the terrace walls and steps. The Grade I Listed doorway in the north wall, although reset, is inscribed with the date 1634 (LB 4170). Within the garden is the Grade I Listed old chapel of St Mary (LB 4172), probably predating the garden. To the north of a broad gravel walk in front of the house are two narrow parallel terraces, and above them a wider, later, third terrace which bows outwards to the north in a semi-circle, giving space for a circular pool. The terraces are separated by retaining walls and grassy slopes less than 1m high and are linked by flights of steps. The middle terrace has a Grade II Listed bench seat (LB 4171) near the chapel which is built on this level but reached by steps from the one below. Little planting survives on the lower terraces, and topiary near the hall has gone. Against the east side of the hall is a small rectangular area of garden enclosed by a Grade II Listed wall (LB 18924) separating it from the terraces to the north. It has a pool with fountain which is now dry. The Water Garden - a formal Italian garden - lies between the Old Hall and Vaynol Hall and dates from the early twentieth century. It is an oval area, long axis north-west by south-east, on ground sloping gently to the south-east. It is laid out along a main axis path with a secondary cross axis, the paths box-edged and separating areas of lawn. The main axis has two flights of steps, the second upper flight leading on to a walled terrace with a fish pond and central fountain. The garden boundary is marked by stone balustrades with urns at intervals, forming an apsidal lower end and defining the edge of the upper terrace. At the top of the garden is a stone wall with Grade II Listed bellcage gate (LB 4178) into the adjacent walled garden. The garden interior is decorated with a Grade II Listed eighteenth-century urn mounted at the inersection of paths (LB 4175); and a pair of putti (naked young children) at the upper end of the garden (LBs 4176-7). The walled Rose Garden, also post-1900 in date, lies to the south-west of the main house, over a previous, informal, lawned garden area, and runs into a much older wood. It has a formal character with terracing, balustrading and a Grade II Listed decorative seat in a recess in the north-west wall (LB 18911). At the edge of nearby woodland is a Grade II Listed marble classical statue and a wellhead (LBs 4179-80). The walled kitchen garden, dated to the early nineteenth century, lies against the north side of the Water Garden, curving around it in the shape of an inverted L. It is surrounded by stone walls averaging 2.5m high and was divided into four unevenly-sized plots by paths. By the end of the nineteenth century there was extensive glass on the north and south-west, and part of the south-west end was an orchard. Other outlying plots were also utilised as kitchen gardens, or for glass, in particular the Grade II Listed Butler’s House garden (LB 4196). Later in its history a tennis court and housing for the menagerie, including a bear pit, house and bison house, were inserted into the garden. The bear pit survives, but no bears. The garden later became overgrown and the glasshouses fell to ruin though part of the garden has more recently returned to cultivation. Setting - Vaynol Hall is located on the Menai Strait and set within extensive parkland and is surrounded by gardens; together these provide the setting for the house. Significant views - From the south-east end of the Water Garden a good view over the park is obtained, while superb views across the Strait to Anglesey were to be had from the dock area. The folly tower at Coed Twr gave sweeping views over the landscape, with the Strait to one side and the heights of Snowdonia to the other. Sources: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 300-306 (ref: PGW(Gd)52(GWY)). Ordnance Survey 25-inch map: sheet Caernarvonshire XI.2 (editions of 1887 & 1913). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton