PGW(Gm)32(GLA)

Dyffryn  

I  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Vale of Glamorgan  

Wenvoe  

309552  

172614  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Edwardian formal gardens; arboretum; walled garden; small park  

Sixteenth-seventeenth century; late eighteenth-early nineteenth century; 1891; 1905-31;  

The gardens of Dyffryn are registered at grade I as the grandest and most outstanding Edwardian gardens in Wales. They are comparable to some of the most extravagant gardens of the period in Britain. They are the result of a remarkable partnership between the owner and horticulturalist Reginald Cory (1871-1934) and the landscape architect Thomas Mawson (1861-1933). The structure of the gardens, combining the expansively formal and the intricately intimate, survives almost in its entirety, with some later modifications within the general framework. Within the gardens are many notable trees, including some very early introductions. The registered park and garden shares important group value with the house, built in 1891-3 for well-known industrialist and philanthropist John Cory, and its associated estate buildings and garden features. Dyffryn House (LB: 13469) is a large mansion in French Renaissance and English Baroque styles situated in gently rolling countryside approximately 2 km south of the village of St Nicholas in the Vale of Glamorgan. The earliest record of a park at Dyffryn is the Ordnance Surveyor's drawing of 1811. The 1878 first edition Ordnance Survey map shows a small park to the north and south of the house, with a lodge at the north end and a long drive leading southwards through the park to the house. A further drive approaches from a lodge to the east. The park was laid out with single trees, clumps, and old hedge-line trees. John Cory bought the 2000-acre estate in 1891 and made some changes to the park before 1900, notably by taking in a field in the north-west corner, extending the garden southwards to make a tennis lawn and making an informal lake at the south end of the park. The park was reduced to a much smaller area by the creation of the gardens from 1905 onwards. These took up the whole of the park to the south of the house and the area between the house and the river Waycock to the north. The gardens extend to 36.4 hectares and contain areas of very different character. To the north-east of the house a flight of rustic stone steps lead up to a rockwork water garden (created in the 1950s) with twisting paths and steps, rockwork pools and cascades. To the east and south-east of the house the ground rises gently and is laid out as an informal arboretum, with open glades and more wooded areas. Some of Cory's most notable trees grow in this area. A heather garden, planted in the 1970s, is situated towards the north end. To the south and south-west of the house the garden is very grand and formal, with intimate compartments in eclectic styles flanking the west side of the large open lawn in the centre and with more informal areas along the west and south sides. On the west side the intricate arrangement of compartments, paths and steps leads up a gentle slope at the north end to the older walled garden. The Edwardian gardens were initiated by Reginald's father Sir John, from 1891 onwards. His first garden was modest, with a balustraded terrace along the south front of the house, formal beds and a tennis lawn surrounded by Irish yews on a further balustraded terrace. To the east of the house was a formal 'panel garden' laid out with Irish yews. These elements were retained in the plan for the gardens by Thomas Mawson, who Sir John commissioned in 1903-04. Work began in 1905, just before he died. The rest of the gardens were laid out by Mawson for John's son Reginald from 1906-14. Reginald was not only interested in garden design but was an exceptionally talented horticulturist and plantsman. The formal and compartmented gardens were largely laid out by Thomas Mawson after 1906. The spacious grandeur of the main terraces, lawns and canal to the south of the house is contrasted with the intimacy of the garden 'rooms' to the west, and all parts are cleverly interlinked by paths and steps. The garden is tied to the house by a strong central north-south axis dominated by the canal. Cross axes link the central open space with the arboretum to the east and compartments to the west. The walled garden (LB: 13472) lies to the west of the house on a south-east facing slope. It is rectangular, consisting of one large compartment and a smaller one to its north-east. The garden has rubble built, roughly coursed, stone walls standing to their full height. Running the full length of the north wall is a modern lean-to glasshouse. The walled garden pre-dates the Mawson landscaping at Duffryn and may well date back to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, contemporary with the earlier house on the site. The garden is shown in its present form on the tithe map of 1841 and 1878 Ordnance Survey map, with two compartments and a small glass house in the middle of the north side of the main one. By the end of the nineteenth century a huge glasshouse had been erected along the entire length of the north wall. This probably dated to after 1891, when Sir John Cory bought Dyffryn. Until the 1930s it housed Reginald Cory's collection of tender plants. Significant View: From the south front of the house - the garden is aligned to the house by a strong central north-south axis dominated by the canal. Source: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, (ref: PGW(Gm)32(GLA)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLVI (1885) Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLVI (1901