PGW(Gd)63(CON)

Hendre House  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Conwy  

Bro Garmon  

281308  

358904  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Small formal and informal garden; small landscape park; walled garden  

Sixteenth/seventeenth century; about 1815; 1820s; 1900s  

Registered as a well-preserved, small country estate, in a beautiful setting, with all its original components intact. Hendre House, its outbuildings, garden and park, form an attractive and relatively rare period piece of the early nineteenth century. Of great interest is the older walled garden, within the park, which was originally the garden of the neighbouring house, Plas Tirion. Hendre House and its park are located on the east side of the Conwy valley on ground falling away to the valley floor. The park is contemporary with the house (LB: 113; NPRN 27310) laid out by William Edwards soon after 1810 as an attractive, ornamental setting for his new home. The layout and planting is shown on the 1880s First Edition 25in Ordnance Survey map which indicates that, apart from some trees having gone from the southern part of the park, very little has changed since that date. The house lies at the foot of the steepest part of the park, its eastern flank, giving fine views to north and west over the parkland to the valley beyond. The park is bounded on the east by the B5427 road from Llanrwst to Nebo and on the remaining sides by field boundaries. The park entrance is in the north-east corner, on the main road, its lodge now gone. The north-south drive is built out over the slope and supported on a rubble-stone wall, flanked on its upper side by a low rubble revetment wall and on its lower side by simple iron park fencing. Most of the park is open, unfenced, rolling grassland with scattered trees (mostly oak), aside from the woodland strip down the east side. It is simple and understated, planting used to enhance the beauty of the scenery to provide attractive views, both outwards from the house and garden and inwards from the Conwy valley floor. Part of the steeper, west-facing slope south of the house is planted with mostly oaks and Scots pines. The northern end of the park is more open, with a strip of gorse below the woodland, and a small pond, with a ruinous stone dam on its west side, on the west boundary. An old, grass-covered track can be traced running north–south to the west of the garden to the park’s south boundary. The garden, contemporary with the house, lies mainly to its north, south and west. It is roughly oval in shape and occupies a platform of more or less level ground below which, to the north and west, the ground falls steeply. To the south and west its character is informal and to the north it is formal, although the 1880s Ordnance Survey map shows that initially it was all informal. The drive enters the garden in the south-east corner and curves round to the north, passing a small shrubbery on the east and a more open area of grass on the west, with mature trees and shrubs in a broad belt along the garden boundary. The drive leads to a gravel forecourt in front of the west side of the house. The ground drops steeply below it, some yew trees on the slope, and a path leads through the trees to the south-west of the house to a gate in the boundary fence and into the park beyond. To the south of the house is a shrubbery on a low mounded ridge. Along the north side of the house are two grass terraces, offering spectacular views over park and valley beyond. The upper terrace, 3m wide, is bounded by a steep grass bank with a flight of eight slate steps at centre flanked by low parapet walls. The main terrace, below, originally a tennis lawn, partly bounded by mortared stone revetment walls, is flanked on its west side by large oak, lime and horse chestnut trees, with more on the steep slope below. Part of the walling once supported a hooped pergola, now fallen. A flight of slate steps at the centre of the north side leads down from the terrace to an informally planted slope to the north boundary of the garden. To the north and east of the house the garden is bounded on the east side by a belt of yew and laurel. The walled garden at Hendre House (NPRN 27310) is located at the far north-west corner of the park on ground sloping gently down to the north-west. It has an irregular shape and is a four-sided area, enclosed by drystone rubble walls up to 3m high. A stream flanked by pine trees runs westwards along the outside of its north wall, and a track runs between its west wall and the park boundary. This leads north-westwards beyond the park to an iron gate leading to a track to Plas Tirion farm (LB: 109) about 200m to the west. Near the south-east corner is a small entrance gap and inside, to the south, a small, sub-divided single-storey building against the wall. Just west of the building is a blocked doorway. The walled garden is of great historic interest in that it was originally the garden of Plas Tirion, a large, late sixteenth-century house built for a junior branch of the Wynn family of nearby Gwydir. It is probable that the walled garden is either contemporary with the building of the house or dates to the early or mid-seventeenth century, when prominent members of the Wynn family were living here. As such it is a rare survival of an early walled garden and may contain archaeological remains of great interest. The 1880s First Edition 25in Ordnance Survey map shows the garden simply laid out with a path along the north and east sides, the building in the south-east corner and a central path running northwestwards across the garden from its west end. Rows of trees, perhaps the nuttery, occupied the western half of the garden and lined the paths. There was also a path along the outside of the north and east walls. Setting & Significant Views: Located in a very attractive situation on a west-facing slope on the east side of the Conwy valley with far-ranging views of the Conwy valley. Sources: Cadw, 2007, Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Additional and Revised Entries. Ordnance Survey, six-inch map, Denbighshire XVI (1880)