PGW(Gm)40(GLA)

Coedarhydyglyn  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Vale of Glamorgan  

St. Georges-super-Ely  

310343  

175089  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; pinetum; informal Dell with Japanese features; terraced garden; walled kitchen garden  

1820s; early twentieth century; 1940s-50s  

Registered for its historic interest as a good example of an early nineteenth century landscape park surviving in its entirety and forming an attractive setting to the house. Edwardian development of the gardens included a woodland Dell with Japanese features, possibly designed by Alfred Parsons and partners. The woodland contains notable planting of conifers and rhododendrons, and includes a pinetum planted in the 1940s and 1950s. The registered park and garden has group value with the house and contemporary estate buildings, including the coach-house and stables (LB: 14865), gate and gate piers (LB: 14866; 14867) and late nineteenth-century entrance lodge. Coedarhydyglyn (formerly Coedriglan) is a neo-classical Regency villa (LB:14864) beautifully situated on elevated ground in the Vale of Glamorgan, 2km south of the village of St George's. It is set on a level platform on a west-facing slope, overlooking a secluded valley which forms part of its park. The park was laid out at the same time as the house was built, in the 1820s or soon after. The house is set centrally in rolling parkland, laid out with broad expanses of pasture and ornamented with single trees and clumps, to the north, east and south of the house. The steep slope below the house is pasture but the entire western flank of the valley, to the west of the stream, is wooded, adding to the sense of seclusion of the house. The woodland, threaded with paths, occupies the whole of the north-west quadrant of the park, on ground sloping to the east and north. It is divided into distinct areas of planting, with an original canopy of oak, beech and sycamore in parts, particularly the eastern half. The eastern half is the most ornamental part with deciduous woodland with under-planting of hybrid rhododendron at intervals along the path an in glades. At the southern end a small tributary valley runs down from the south-west. On its north side a path runs to an open glade, plantings include a monkey puzzle tree, rhododendrons, cut-leaf beeches, two Irish yews and variegated holly. This is the ‘garden in the wood’. It is partly surrounded by a ruinous, low stone wall. Just above it, near the woodland boundary, are two springs, one with a stone-edged pond, below it. A stony path, with stone steps on the steeper slopes, leads back down the south side of the valley, flanked by a tall stand of oaks. To the north of the side valley, further up the slope, is the pinetum. This is an area of the wood cleared and planted in the 1940s and 1950s with rare conifers and rhododendrons by Lady Traherne. Many trees have grown into fine specimens and the pinetum has won several prizes. Below is an area of unusual cypresses, the ‘Cypress Garden’, also planted by Lady Traherne, before the Second World War. A small stream runs northwards down the eastern side of the woodland. Just to its west, to the north-west of the house, is a small, oval, stone-lined pool or well. This is of some antiquity, being shown on the 1878 25 in. Ordnance Survey map. Above it is a path and to the north the stream runs into a roughly circular pond, with the path, skirting its west side and running along the flat top of the dam on its north side. This is a substantial, curving, earthen structure, with a large drop below it. At the west end is a stone built sluice and overflow channel, splayed on the north-west side, with a parapet wall running from it westwards next to the path. The east and south boundaries of the park are mostly screened by belts of beech trees which are prominent features of the park. The highest ground is the ridge at the south end of the park, where Old Coedarhydyglyn and the walled garden are situated (NPRN: 265811). On the ridge top a belt of beech trees runs westwards along the south boundary. The slope is planted with lime, clumps of pines, and a clump of sycamore. The entrance lies in the south-east corner at South Lodge. The drive winds down a dry valley, running north-westwards and then turning north below the house and wooded garden grounds. Further north, a former drive now a farm track, runs south-west to the stable block (LB: 14865) from an entrance and (later) lodge (North Lodge) on the east lane. To the north of the house and garden, on the north-west facing slope of the valley, is a belt of mixed deciduous woodland. The south-west corner of the park is bounded by narrow lanes with belts of deciduous trees next to them. A band of mixed woodland, including oak, ash, beech, pine, yew, cypress and copper beech, runs east from the west boundary along uneven quarried ground. The gardens lie to the north, west and south of the house and fall into two distinct areas: those immediately around the house established in the 1820s; and those in the valley to the south, developed in the Edwardian period. There are expansive lawns immediately around the house. A levelled lawn is cut into the slope on the south side and on the west a steep grass slope descends to the boundary with the park below. A large cedar of Lebanon stands on the bank above the south lawn. The garden around the house was made at the same time as the house was built in the 1820s. The 1878 25 in. Ordnance Survey map shows a lozenge-shaped area, bounded probably by fencing, enclosing the house, lawns, stable block and wooded area to the east of the house. The cedar to the south of the house is shown on the map, as is another, now gone, at the south end of the lawn. The second area, is in the valley to the south forming a wooded approach and an informally planted valley known as the Dell. The Dell is a woodland and water garden with a small stream running northwards through it from springs at its south end. The ornamental planting has an oriental flavour, including rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and acers. There is a canopy of oak and large ornamental trees include acers, a copper beech and a Chusan Palm. A gravel path leads down into the Dell from the south end of the lawn, crossing the stream on a single-arched stone bridge, below which the stream runs over a small cascade. Various branch paths run up both sides of the valley with rough stone steps on the steeper slopes. On the south side a slatted arched bridge in Japanese style takes a path over a side rill. Above this path, on the south-west side of the garden, is a wooden Japanese tea-house, moved from its original position lower down the slope, overlooking the stream, where it stood on wooden stilts, canted out over the slope. On the west boundary is an original Japanese covered gate, with double slatted wooden gates set underneath a ridged fish-scale tile roof. In 1904-05 Alfred Parsons, together with his partners Captain Walter Partridge and Charles Tudway, undertook garden design and planting work for a 'Mr Traherne'. This could either be at Bryngarw, near Bridgend, or Coedarhydyglyn. In a letter of 29th May 1905 Partridge wrote to Tudway: 'Traherne arrived here yesterday afternoon & has given us the job which he wants done bit by bit, & the valley part first - I am afraid he will want it much overplanted ...'. Whether or not Parsons, Partridge and Tudway were involved, the Dell was developed into a woodland and water Japanese-style garden in the Edwardian period. Real Japanese structures were installed, some of which survive. Two shallow terraces, bounded by low dry-stone revetment walls, with interconnecting flights of steps, were made in the upper part of the south lawn in this period. These were removed in the late 1990s. The walled garden is situated on the ridge on the southern boundary of the park, to the south-west of the house. It lies immediately to the west of the site of Old Coedarhydyglyn. The walled garden is trapezoidal, with rubble stone walls. There are doorways in the east and west sides. On the north side is a wider modern opening. The inside of the north wall has a brick lining and once had glasshouses against it. The north end of the east side is occupied by a two-storey rendered house (Hengoed House). This was converted from bothies and was raised to two storeys after the Second World War, when it was damaged by a bomb. The walled garden was probably built in the late eighteenth century as the kitchen garden for Old Coedarhydyglyn, built in 1767 and demolished in 1823. Of the old house all that remains is a block of stone cottages, converted from the coach house, to the east of the garden. The 1878 25 in. Ordnance Survey map shows the garden laid out with perimeter and cross paths, with two pools or wells in the eastern half and with a glasshouse next to the north wall near the west end. As there is no kitchen garden near the new house it is assumed that this one continued in active use after the new house was built. The 1878 map shows a path, now gone, leading north-eastwards across the park to the main drive. Significant Views: Coedarhydyglyn is situated on a west-facing slope, overlooking a secluded valley which forms part of its park. Sources: Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 216-19 (ref: PGW(Gm)40(GLA)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLVI.NE (1877).