PGW(C)37(DEN)

Garthgynan  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Denbighshire  

Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd  

314297  

355368  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Formal walled garden, orchard and fish ponds  

Mid seventeenth century, with earlier foundations, possibly of the late sixteenth century or early seventeenth century  

Garthgynan is registered as a well-preserved small seventeenth-century walled garden incorporating a banqueting house, raised terrace and bee boles. The walled garden is situated adjacent to the house, which closes the walled garden on its north side. There are fine views from the terrace and banqueting house. Below the walled garden is a terraced orchard and former ornamental fishponds. The registered area has important group value with the listed house and the complex of estate outbuildings including a smithy, brewhouse, granary, cow-shed, stables, cartshed and corn mill. Garthgynan House (LB: 778; NPRN: 27188) lies on a low hill to the south-east of the village of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd. It is approached from the north by a track off the B5429 which crosses the Dwr Iâl stream over a small stone bridge. The approach is bounded by a bank on the west side, and the area around it is planted with a mixture of deciduous trees. To the north of the house is a pond built into the retaining wall of the north approach. It has two small square openings with a wooden beam above built into the wall. The pond is now dry, but when the water level was up these openings may have allowed waterfowl access to the enclosed area on the north side of the house. A short straight drive branches off the track and leads to the north front of the house. The pleasure garden is a small walled garden attached to the house on its south side. The walled garden is also grade II* listed. Like the house, parts of the lower walls are stone, possibly dating to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The brick walls, terrace and pavilion relate to the second stage of the mid-seventeenth century rebuilding of the house. The walls of the garden contain 31 small bee boles; the east wall incorporates fourteen small bee-boles, the west side seventeen. A privy was built into the eastern wall in the nineteenth century and decorated with an older piece of decorated stonework. The garden can be approached from three directions: directly from the house; or by a door in the west wall; or by a door in the north wall next to the house. A banqueting house in the south-west corner of the garden was possibly mirrored by a similar building in the south-east corner, the two joined by a raised turf terrace with fine views to the south. It is bounded by a steep grass scarp, incorporating three flights of stone steps spaced at equal intervals. In the centre of the garden is a small stone-edged pond. The central area of the garden is half lawn whilst the rest is laid out with a mixture of vegetable and flower beds in small plots. Against the east wall there is a line of small square beds, with a shrub border across the front of the corresponding west wall. Perimeter and cross gravel paths run through the garden. Outside the eastern perimeter wall narrow terraces descend a steep bank, known as the orchard, with some old fruit trees still growing there. At the foot of the bank is a linear, canal-like, pond with banks on three sides. Just beyond the rectangular pond runs the stream Dwr Ial. The orchard and pond are shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1874). Setting: Situated in the Vale of Clwyd, Garthgynan lies on a low hill to the south-east of the village of Llanfair Dyffryn Clwyd. Significant Views: Fine views from the gardens, particularly to the east towards the Clwydian Range and to the south. Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 88-90 (ref: PGW(C)37). Ordnance Survey, six-inch Denbighshire XIX (1879)