PGW(Gm)31(CDF)

St Fagans Castle  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Cardiff  

St. Fagans  

311268  

177407  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Formal and terraced gardens; formal ponds; informal grounds and water garden; formally laid out woodland  

1560-96; 1855-70s; 1898-1935; 1908  

St Fagans Castle is located in the western suburbs of Cardiff. It is registered for having one of the most important historic gardens in Wales. It is a multi-period, extensive garden in compartments and terraces with underlying Tudor structure, now predominantly Victorian and Edwardian, retaining much of its layout and structural planting. The formalised ponds may be medieval in origin and were certainly in existence in the sixteenth century. To their north is a water garden designed and built by the famous Victorian rockwork and water garden designers, Pulham and Co. There is also the partial survival of an unusual experimental woodland laid out with axial rides at the beginning of the twentieth century. The grounds now contain the St Fagans National Museum of History. There is group value with the Grade I Listed Castle (LB 13888) together with several Listed structures associated with the gardens as well as with a number of Listed reconstructed buildings relocated here from across Wales as museum exhibits. The museum building itself is Grade II Listed (LB 87638). The Castle is situated at the southern end of the village of St Fagans. To the west the ground drops steeply towards a north-south tributary valley of the Ely river which lies to the south. The woodland grounds occupy a gently sloping triangular area to the west of the house and ornamental grounds, its apex to the north-west. The woodland area was established in 1908 by the Earl of Plymouth. 78 acres were enclosed with a fence. Six of them, at the east end, were for a kitchen garden and tennis courts which are now occupied by the Museum of Welsh Life, its main buildings and car park. The original lay out was a formal pattern of rides dividing the area into compartments and smaller planting blocks which included a wide range of ornamental trees. Extensive areas were felled in the 1950s to make way for the reconstructed buildings of the museum. The southern half of the woodland retains most of its major axial rides and open grass areas. Trees here are mixed deciduous species, with a few specimen trees and a group of pines. The north-west quadrant of the woodland also retains most of its major axial rides. Trees here are mostly mixed deciduous. Museum encroachment has obliterated the north-east quadrant. The gardens lie to the north, east and west of the Castle, to the east of the woodland grounds. They occupy a rectangular area through which a tributary to the river Ely runs from north to south. The ground drops steeply from the house to the valley bottom to the west, rising more gently on the other side. The gardens have been developed over a long period. They partly overlie, and have adapted, a medieval landscape of castle, parsonage, village and fishponds. The gardens are bounded by substantial stone walls and can be divided into five distinct areas: the forecourts to the east, the compartments to the north, the terraces and ponds, the informal wood and water gardens, and the compartments at the north end of the garden. The main approach to the house is from the east, through Grade II Listed gates (LB 13883) into the wooded entrance garden bounded by Grade II Listed walls (LB 13887). An axial central walk flanked by pleached limes leads to the inner forecourt through an arched entrance in the Grade II Listed curtain wall of the medieval castle (LB 82223). The court is laid out with a circular gravel sweep, lawn and narrow borders at the foot of the walls. In the centre is a circular, seventeenth-century Grade II* Listed lead cistern set in a circle of low hedge and grass (LB 13885). A narrow flat-topped doorway on the north side leads into the gardens. The second main area comprises the compartments north of the house. The whole area is bounded by Grade II Listed stone walls, (LB 82252) and is subdivided either by walls or formal hedging. The first compartment, next to the house, is known as the Parterre or Dutch Garden, with battlement wall and watchtowers. In the centre of the parterre is a Grade II Listed Italianate marble fountain (LB 82224). The northern half of the compartment is a bowling green lawn. The east-west path leads eastwards under a hornbeam tunnel, to two further compartments; the Knot Garden on the south, the Herb Garden on the north. The second compartment to the north of the Parterre is the Mulberry Garden, accessed from the bowlling green through an ornamental gateway. It is laid out to lawn planted with an orchard of mulberry trees, roughly square and bounded by Grade II Listed walls on all but the east side (LB 13890). On the east side steps lead up to two free-standing glasshouses, orientated east-west, dating to 1920-40. Conjoining the Mulberry Garden and glasshouse area is the former kitchen garden which is bounded by Grade II Listed walls (LB 13892) and which contains Grade II Listed Gardens House, the former head gardener’s house (LB 82230). Behind it is the Grade II Listed east boundary wall of the grounds (LB 13880). To the north west is an informal area of lawn, trees and shrubs. To the north is the area known as the Ilex Grove, planted with evergreen oaks, bounded on the east by a Grade II Listed wall (LB 13894). This is partly the wall of the Italian Garden, a rectangular walled compartment which lies behind the Ilex Grove. The third main area of the gardens is the terraces and ponds. Three Grade II Listed Italian terraces, supported by retaining walls, lie on the steep slope descending westwards to the valley floor (LB 13891), backed on the east by the wall of the Dutch Garden. The terraces have gravel walkways and shrub borders and are linked by flights of steps. At the southern end of the terraces there is a steep descent to the fishponds by a high flight of steps. A series of four formal, stone-lined ponds, aligned north by south, lie in the flat valley bottom, fed by a stream at the north end. All have grassy flat-topped dams with narrow sluice channels. Near the head of the ponds is a Grade II Listed dovecote (LB 13901). The fourth area of the gardens is the informal woodland and water garden which lies on the west side of the valley to the north of the ponds, an area bounded by the Grade II Listed former north boundary wall of the castle grounds (LB 13900). The stream, bordered by conglomerate rockwork, winds through an area of undulating lawn planted with ornamental trees, including willow, hawthorn, flowering cherries and magnolias. A path crosses the stream towards the south end over a low stone bridge beneath which is a small waterfall. A path leads to the Grade II Listed Stryt Lydan barn, a sixteenth-century barn brought from near Penley in Flintshire (LB 13899). To its north is the boundary wall of the area with a summerhouse built into the north-west corner. The last area of the gardens is the compartments at the north end variously enclosed by hedges and Grade II Listed stone walls up to 4m high (LB 13896). The area is rectangular except for the west end, which is triangular. Features include a lawn planted with four rows of pleached hornbeams, one along each side; several terraces; a rectangular pool, a former swimming pool; a Grade II Listed rebuilt eighteenth-century woollen factory from Llanwrtyd (LB 13897); and a triangular walled area of grass planted with specimen trees. Setting - St Fagans Castle, gardens and grounds lie on the edge of the village of St Fagans which abuts it on the west and is now within the suburbs of Cardiff. It is otherwise surrounded by farmland. Significant views - From the western garden terraces there are views west across the grounds and the countryside beyond. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 82-9 (ref: PGW(Gm)31(CDF)). Ordnance Survey Third Edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLII.12 (1920).