PGW(Gm)14(GLA)

Ewenny Priory  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Vale of Glamorgan  

Ewenny  

291451  

177676  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Deer park; landscape park; informal garden; walled kitchen garden  

Second half of sixteenth century; 1803-05  

The registered area at Ewenny Priory represents the early-nineteenth century garden layout and contemporary house built within the medieval monastic precinct at Ewenny, together with its park, which has origins as a medieval deer park. The registered park and garden shares important group value with the scheduled monument at Ewenny Priory and the many associated listed buildings. Ewenny Priory is situated on the flood plain of the Ogmore valley, just to the south of a canalized stretch of the river, to the south of Bridgend. A Benedictine Priory was founded here by Maurice de Londres of Ogmore Castle in about 1141 (scheduled monument GM190). St Michael's church (LB: 11251) was built by William de Londres, Maurice's father, between 1116 and 1126. Later in the twelfth century, and with additions in about 1300, the substantial precinct walls and gatehouses were built, enclosing a roughly rectangular area to the south and west of the church, and giving the priory a fortified character. The house (LB: 11249) outbuildings, and gardens were built within and incorporate parts of the monastic precinct. The park, known as the Buckcourt, was first a deer park dating to the second half of the sixteenth century, made by Sir Edward Carne or his son Thomas. Writing in about 1578 Rice Merrick noted two deer parks at Ewenny, one for fallow deer and one for red deer. This park is likely to be the fallow deer park; the whereabouts of the red deer park is not known. The walls of the park are all that remain of this Tudor park. The park was altered in character to become a landscape park by Richard Picton Turbervill at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when his new house was built. The monastic precinct wall to the south of the house was demolished and replaced by a ha-ha to open up the view from the house and garden towards the park. When the archery lawn was made the stream, which probably originally ran closer to the house, was diverted and canalized along the south edge of the lawn. The park was probably planted at this time, with the western perimeter belt being given a wavy outline to soften it. The hill to the south, beyond the Corntown road, which is part of the estate, was ornamentally planted with a large clump of deciduous trees. These are seen on the skyline from the house and garden, and form an important part of the view to the south. By 1877 (1st edition Ordnance Survey map) the park had achieved its present layout, and it has been little altered since. The park lies mostly to the south of the house, gardens and church, on ground falling gently to the south. It is enclosed within rubble stone walls up to 3m high along its east, west and south sides. The entrance, flanked by gate piers and a lodge, is near the southwest corner, through wooden gates under a Gothic archway in the lodge gatehouse (LB: 11324) a castellated Gothic building. A drive, now grassed over but still in use, runs north towards the garden. The park interior is open grassland, with belts of mixed, deciduous trees around the perimeter and a large clump near the north-west corner. A few isolated deciduous trees of mixed age, oak, plane and horse chestnut, ornament the remainder of the park. The gardens lie to the south, east, and west of the house. They occupy the monastic precinct and were largely created by Richard Turbervill Picton in 1803-05 at the same time as the present house was built. Their present layout had been attained by 1877. There are three main garden areas. The core of the garden is the lawned area in which the house is set and through which the drives pass to a circle in front of the house. The area is bounded on the west by the east wall of the walled garden (LB: 19464), on the south by the ha-ha, and on the east by the east wall of the precinct (LB: 19465). Two towers of medieval origin, the south gatehouse (LB: 19471), and the dovecote tower (LB: 19467), stand at the south-west and south-east corners. A flight of steps, shown on the 1877 map, lead down from the lawn to the archery field opposite the front door of the house. To the east of the house the lawn forms three levels, separated by slight scarps. Lawns have plantings of beech, elm and ash. The second section of the gardens is the informal grounds to the south-west of the house, beyond the priory precinct. It is largely wooded former parkland and has been laid out as ornamental woodland by the present owner. This includes a small informal pond to the west of the drive, a mown clearing in the woodland beyond it, and planted ornamental trees and shrubs within the woodland. The third garden section is a rectangular area, originally an orchard, sloping gently to the south, at the east end of the garden beyond the precinct wall. There is a greenhouse dating to 1890 against its north wall. The area is laid out to lawn and a gravel path runs east from the Romanesque doorway (LB: 19466). It contains at its southern end a linear pond with a central fountain, and an informal area of trees and shrubs laid out in the 1930s when winding rills and pools were created with water channelled from the pond. Many of the trees date to the nineteenth century and include pines and a large horse chestnut planted in 1815 to commemorate Sir Thomas Picton's departure for Waterloo. The kitchen garden lies to the west. It is a four-sided area bounded on the north, west and south sides by the high stone medieval walls of the priory precinct (LB: 19460) and on the east side by a stone wall built to enclose the area for a kitchen garden in the early nineteenth-century (LB: 19464). The crenellated walls were built in the thirteenth-century, soon after the gatehouses, and stand to their original height, with a wall-walk behind the battlements. The north-west corner has a round tower. The interior is laid out with perimeter and cross grass paths on the lines of the original paths shown on the 1877 map. Near the south end of the central axis is a rare example of a medieval fish pool (LB: 19469) with a low parapet and a flight of steps leading down to the water on the north side. Significant View: Views south over the haha to the park from the house and gardens, and beyond to the tree clump planted on the skyline. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 236-9 (ref: PGW(Gm)14(GLA)). Ordnance Survey First Edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XL.12 (1877).