PGW(Po)21(POW)

Penpont  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Trallong  

297201  

228771  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Small landscape park; formal and informal gardens; walled kitchen garden.  

c. 1660; c. 1740s-81; 1781-1830s.  

The survival, in a highly picturesque situation, of an early nineteenth-century landscape park in a style influenced by Repton with formal and informal gardens and a well-preserved walled kitchen garden. The remains of an earlier formal garden layout also survive and the grounds include some of the first larch trees in Britain. The registered park and garden has group value with the late seventeenth-century gentry house, estate outbuildings, church and associated parkland and garden structures at Penpont. Penpont is one of the most historic and important houses in Brecknock (LB: 6802). It lies in the picturesque Usk valley, a few miles west of Brecon, on the south bank of the river. The park extends to the south of the road (A40) where the ground rises towards the Brecon Beacons. The Great Pond, is at the top of the park. In the valley below the Great Pond was a string of five small ponds, and one lower one. There is also some relict parkland tree planting, including beech, oak, pine, horse and sweet chestnut and a wellingtonia. Beech remain along the boundary wall and in a clump on the high ground east of the Great Pond. Some beech trees are the remnants of an avenue which ran from Pen-y-parc to the mountain gate. These developments date to the 1770s under Penry Williams II (1714-81). Penry III, continued the family’s interest in landscaping; Humphry Repton’s Observations on the theory and practice of landscape gardening (1805 edition) was given to Penry by his wife Maria in March 1806 and probably helped to inspire further developments in the grounds, which coincided with the improvements to the house. Penry Williams III’s layout is shown on the 1891 Ordnance Survey map and survives to this day. He made the picturesque walk through woodland, via a tunnel under the road and beside the stream in Cwm Lodge. The gently sloping pasture fields of the park to the north of the A40 lie between the road and the river Usk. In the early nineteenth century a long, curving ha-ha (LB: 26106) was made on the eastern boundary of the gardens, allowing views out over the park and landscape. To the south of the house and garden a narrow area of parkland slopes up gently from the house to the A40 and is dotted with large, mature deciduous trees, particularly oak, sweet chestnut and sycamore. A picturesque, unsurfaced walk runs along the river bank from the road to Abersefin Farm, next to the bridge, with an iron pedestrian gate at the entrance. It runs through yew trees and on westwards through a now incomplete avenue of closely planted oaks of considerable size and height. The garden and grounds lie mainly to the south and east of the house on ground sloping up to the south. They gardens are largely informal, with the remnants of an early formal layout. The gardens have been developed over a long period, since 1660, and features from all phases remain. The earliest structure is the bridge, built in c. 1660 by Daniel Williams (LB: 26097). Although primarily functional, this forms an important and picturesque element in the landscape of Penpont. In the mid-eighteenth century, Penry Williams II carried out a considerable amount of tree planting around the house, and in particular European larch. The larches, possibly planted in the 1740s, were among the first to be planted in Wales and some of the earliest in Britain. By the early nineteenth century, the gardens had become more informal with the creation of the large lawn, with its fringing trees and shrubs and wooded area. The kitchen garden (LB: 26095) lies on the north side of the river, to the north-west of the Rose Garden, on ground rising gently to the north. The present garden dates from c. 1794. The garden is five-sided but roughly rectangular and divided into two unequal halves, the northern being the smaller, by an east-west cross wall. Along the north wall are two glasshouses, a vine house and a pine house, thought to date to the early nineteenth century. In the north-east corner of the garden is the gardener’s cottage (LB: 26096). Significant Views: from the gardens and park across the Usk Valley. Sources: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, (ref: PGW (Po)21(POW)). Ordnance Survey six-inch map sheet: Brecknockshire XXVII.SW (1887