PGW(C)28(DEN)

Plas Heaton  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Denbighshire  

Trefnant  

303292  

369130  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscape park; informal woodland garden with circuit walk.  

1805; 1860s.  

Registered for its historic interest as a good example of a nineteenth-century landscape park and informal woodland garden with a circuit walk. The registered park and garden has group value with the substantial late Georgian country house and associated estate buildings and structures of contemporary date and to which the registered area provides the immediate setting. Plas Heaton is situated on the western edge of the Vale of Clwyd, to the north-west of Denbigh. The park was probably made in the early nineteenth-century at the time of the re-modelling of the house (LB: 1065). There are two drives, approaching the house from the north and south, off the B5428 road each with an entrance flanked by gate piers and an entrance lodge. A map of 1812 shows a narrow band of perimeter planting running from lodge to lodge. This has largely disappeared, but it probably marked the area then known as the 'park'. The north lodge is contemporary with the rebuilding of the house; the south lodge is late nineteenth-century. The northern drive is now unused and grassed over. It divides, the eastern branch leading to the farmyard, the western sweeping round to the west of the house to link up with the south drive to a small gravel forecourt to the south of the house. The south drive divides in the same way as the north drive. The park is partly bounded by a dry-stone wall contemporary with the rebuilding of the house. Within it are several small ponds of a utilitarian nature. Isolated deciduous trees, particularly oaks, are dotted about the park. Much of the parkland planting has thinned considerably and any group plantings there may have been are now undefined. The first edition Ordnance Survey map (1880) shows quite considerable parkland planting. The main areas of garden lie to the west and south of the house. A Georgian sundial (LB: 23514) stands on the lawn to the south of the house. Aside from the small area of lawn around the house, the garden is essentially an enclosed woodland garden with a circuit walk. The layout is thought to date from the 1860s when photographs show many more flowerbeds than now exist. The entire pleasure garden is surrounded by a ha-ha. The woodland lies mostly to the south of the house and includes the remains of ornamental planting, many spring bulbs, and under-plantings of laurel and box. The woodland is reached by crossing the lawn on the south front of the house and crossing the farm drive on a cobbled path between two stone arches. Some terracing has been cut into the natural limestone that the woodland area is composed of. Other features include a cave of antiquarian interest near the house (NPRN:306641), the remains of a grotto or garden building at the southern end of the wood, an early nineteenth-century icehouse built into the north-west retaining wall of the wood (LB: 23517) and the informal circuit walk. The latter circuits the perimeter of the wood, a circular group of yews marks the start of the walk. Its culmination is the terrace on the north side of the wood which affords views towards the Irish Sea and the Clwydian Hills. To the immediate south of the house, is a brick-walled garden (LB: 23518) laid in English Garden Wall bond and approximately 4m in height. The garden is six sided: three-sided rectangular on the south, three-sided sub triangular on the north. A small conservatory/vinery is situated on the inner side of the north wall. The back of the north wall has a line of stone-framed potting sheds, tool sheds and head gardener’s office. Also present are trained fruit trees, many with aluminium labels, four Victorian iron-framed glass cloches and, outside the walled garden, an area with utilitarian, Victorian glasshouses and fruit cages plus more trained fruit trees on the outside of the wall. A ha-ha runs along the southern side of the walled garden and then turns into a subterranean passageway running under the farm drive. The second walled garden lies at the southern tip of the woodland pleasure garden. Thought to have been a walled orchard, it is referred to as the 'Hen Ardd' and is possibly nineteenth-century in date. It is sub-rectangular in shape, long axis east-west, within curving dry-stone walls about 3m high. Part of the inner north wall is brick lined with the remains of a flue system. None of the once extensive glass ranges survive. The remains of a small nineteenth-century brick dwelling house is situated midway along the flued wall. Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 200-02 (ref: PGW(C)28). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map: sheet Flintshire VII (1880); & second-edition map: sheet Denbighshire VIII.SE (1900).