PGW(Gd)64(GWY)

Former Nuclear Power Station at Trawsfynydd: Dragon Square and Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Gwynedd  

Maentwrog  

269151  

338063  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Formal Garden (Dragon Square) and informal gardens (Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden) with terracing and pool.  

1959-65  

The former nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd was landscaped by one of the most influential and pioneering landscapers of her day, Dame Sylvia Crowe. Her very fine, thoughtful landscaping at the site ensured that the power station was sympathetically introduced into a wild and rugged landscape without harming its essential character. Her work includes two discrete gardens, Dragon Square and the Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden, which make up the registered area, whilst the remaining landscaping by Crowe forms the highly important landscaped setting. The former nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd (Trawsfynydd Decommissioning Site) is situated at the north end of Llyn Trawsfynydd, 200m above sea level. The two-square-mile lake played an integral role in the generation of electricity at the site by providing 35 million gallons of cooling water per hour. It was originally formed in 1924–28 to provide water for Maentwrog Hydroelectric Power Station. In June 1959 Atomic Power Constructions Ltd was granted the contract for building the power station and work began on its buildings and landscaping.The architect was Basil (later Sir Basil) Spence, who worked closely with the landscape architect Sylvia (later Dame Sylvia) Crowe, who was responsible for the landscaping (on the design concept), siting and layout of the buildings. The power station began providing electricity to the national grid in 1965 and was officially opened by the Rt Hon. James Griffiths, MP, Secretary of State for Wales, on 18 October 1968. Power generation ceased at Trawsfynydd in 1991 and since then a process of decommissioning and demolition has been underway. The two gardens were part of the wider landscaping of the whole site by Dame Sylvia Crowe. Dragon Square is situated to the east of the administrative block, at the south end of the turbine hall and workshop building.The Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden is situated on the south edge of the site, to the south of the reactor buildings. Dragon Square is a small square garden bounded by a low, evergreen clipped hedge, within which is a gravel path. There are central entrances — simple gaps in the hedge — on all but the south side. Ten native alder trees (Alnus glutinosa) are evenly spaced around the north, east and west sides. The interior of the garden is largely taken up by an elaborate, swirling, Welsh dragon, delineated in dark grey stones and cream-coloured cobbles, and slightly raised above the surrounding, lighter grey gravel. Low shrubs, herbaceous plants and grasses are planted in the surrounding gravel. The Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden was designed as an area for staff recreation and relaxation. It did not have a formal name but came to be called the Dame Sylvia Crowe Garden. The east end of the garden is laid out with four curving drystone walled terraces on the slope. At the foot of the terraces is a gravel path, edged with stone on the outside. At the east end of the path is a small, circular pool: this is a natural spring. At the west end of the terraces, where the slope is eastwardfacing, there is a long flight of twenty-three steps, which runs diagonally from the foot of the slope to the top. The treads are of gravel and risers of slate. At the top of the main flight of steps the direction of the path turns to the west, with a small platform and then a small flight of three more, similar steps to the top of the slope. A gravel path then winds westwards along the top of the ridge, with natural rocks to its south and cherry trees to its north and a ground cover of heather and ferns. The path leads to an L-shaped rustic bench of two planks resting on four roughly squared and tapered stone blocks. It then continues westwards through birch trees and scrubby elder to a rocky promontory at the end of the garden; this is planted with pine and birch trees and on its north edge is a sheer drop to the roadway below. History of the landscaping Much thought went into the landscaping, layout and design of the power station so as to fit it as sympathetically as possible into the landscape. The construction of the power station was a sensitive issue, lying as it does in Snowdonia National Park and within a natural landscape of rugged beauty. The landscaping was the work of Sylvia Crowe, aided by her assistant, Anthony Pasley, who visited the site frequently over a period of three years, from 1959. Sylvia Crowe produced an overall site plan, dated 11 December 1959, which shows the landscaping much as it was carried out. She also made three sketch views of the general idea of how the buildings should sit in the landscape: these were from the main approach road (A), the road at Tyddyn-y-garreg (B) and the view from the road at Utica (C). The landscaping involved a large amount of earth-moving. The scale of the buildings was such that the only way to marry the landscape to them was to expand the scale of the surrounding landscape to fit the scale of the buildings. To this end Sylvia Crowe persuaded the Central Electricity Generating Board to buy up large areas of land around the site which she proceeded to afforest with spruce, beech, birch, rowan, sycamore and Pinus contorta. This gave the landscape greater scale and eased the transition between the wider landscape and the power station. As much use as possible was made of natural, local materials and local, indigenous plants in the landscaping. Sources: Cadw 2007: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 27-28 (ref: PGW(Gd)30(GWY)).