Registered Historic Park & Garden


Details


Reference Number
PGW(C)35(DEN)
Name
St. Beuno's College  
Grade
II  
Date of Designation
01/02/2022  
Status
Designated  

Location


Unitary Authority
Denbighshire  
Community
Tremeirchion  
Easting
308072  
Northing
374016  

Broad Class
Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  
Site Type
Terraced fruit and vegetable garden and pleasure garden with formal elements.  
Main phases of construction
1846-49.  

Description


Summary Description and Reason for Designation
Registered for its historic interest as a good example of a nineteenth-century designed garden attached to a religious house and incorporating a terraced fruit and vegetable garden and pleasure garden. The registered area has group value with St Beuno’s College (LB: 26459) and the associated buildings and structures. It also has historical associations with the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) who lived here from 1874 to 1877. St Beuno's College was founded in 1848, although the Jesuits had owned a farm in the Tremeirchion area since 1662. Lying in the lee of Moel Maenefa, St Beuno's faces west toward Snowdon and the Great Orme at Llandudno, with the Vale of Clwyd below. It was built in two main periods, 1846-49, and 1873-74. The majority of the gardens are situated to the west, east and south of the main building on the steep west-facing slope that the College is built on. In a letter to his father, written in 1874, Gerard Manley Hopkins described the gardens as 'all heights, terraces, Excelsiors, misty mountain tops, seats up trees called Crows' Nests, flight of steps seemingly up to heaven lined with burning aspiration upon aspiration of scarlet geraniums: it is very pretty and airy but it gives you the impression that if you took a step farther you would find yourself on Plenlimmon, Conway Castle, or Salisbury Craig'. Like the house, the garden appears to have been built in two main periods. The first period of 1846-49 included the west-facing kitchen garden terraces behind the house, of which there are five. These were originally planted with fruit trees, but are now mostly grassed over. The long flight of steps (LB: 26480) forms an axial line through the terraces, flanked by clipped Irish yews. This line is continued with the steps leading to the next level down (LB: 26467) lining up with the west front of the house. Below the terraces on the south side of the house is another separate terrace on which are three circular formal beds. To the south of this area, and on a higher level reached by steps is a grotto to Our Lady of Lourdes, a small artificial cave of dripstone. The grotto was built sometime after 1871, probably at the time of the second period of building 1873-74. It is backed by a dense planting of rhododendrons and laurels. Just to the west of the grotto a wooded walk leads to the garden boundary, and then strikes out across a field to the wooded promontory where the Rock Chapel (LB: 1409) to Our Lady of the Sorrows, stands. The Rock Chapel was designed in 1866 by Ignatius Scoles, who was a student of Theology at St Beuno's from 1864. A cemetery for the college is situated to the south of the terraces. The west terrace is supported by a stone retaining wall 2 m. high (LB: 26466). This in turn once formed the back wall for a row of lean-to glasshouses, now replaced by a border. After the north wing was added in 1873-74, the terrace was also extended to the north. Significant View: Panoramic views over the Vale of Clwyd from the west terrace. Views from the gardens to the Rock Chapel. Sources: Cadw, Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in Wales: Clwyd (1995), 236-8. Ordnance Survey 25-inch map: sheet Flint V.13, (1912).  

Cadw : Registered Historic Park & Garden [ Records 1 of 1 ]




Export