PGW(Po)37(POW)

Brookland Hall  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Powys  

Guilsfield  

321405  

309968  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Modest gentry house with relict formal and walled kitchen gardens. Mature compact parkland.  

c. 1860 on  

Registered as a good example of a small Victorian park with a very fine approach to the house and with relict formal and walled kitchen gardens of contemporary date. The registered area has group value with the grade II listed house and contemporary estate outbuildings, entrance gate piers and walls. Brookland Hall (LB: 15800) to the south-west of Guilsfield, was built on a green field site on land in the ownership of the Curling family of Maesmawr Hall (LB: 15810). The house is located on the north-west edge of a small Victorian park, which covers about 40 acres (16.2ha). It runs south-east downhill from the house and garden, and from a high bank above Shade Oak in a gentle undulating valley. It is understood that no major earth-moving was necessary as the natural contours of the land, which are characteristic of the surrounding area, created an elegant and picturesque setting for the park. The peaks and troughs of the natural landform were highlighted through astute tree planting, with groups of lime, oak and beech. The house is approached from an entrance in its south-east corner. A pair of ornamental stone gates (LB: 15799) leads off the road on to the drive which curves up and around the southern end of the park towards the house. Mature trees, including Scots pine, cedar, oak and beech, grow near the drive. Set below it, in the gently sloping valley, there is a cricket pitch at the west end of which is a group of mature lime trees. To the north, at the top of the high bank above Shade Oak on a rise about midway along the eastern park boundary, there are two mature plantings of beech and oak. A service drive approaches the house from the north. As the main drive approaches the garden it passes through an iron gate connected to nineteenth-century iron fencing which separates the garden from the park. The formal gardens at Brookland Hall lie to the south and south-east of the house. They are contemporary with the house, dating from about 1860. It appears that they were designed as a group of terraces around the walled kitchen garden and ornamented in a High Victorian manner, though changes occurred during the twentieth century. A wide tarmacked walk runs along the south side of the house above a rectangular terrace lawn, enclosed on the south by a line of trees. The walk runs around the east front of the house, to an area that was once a formal parterre containing small geometric beds of low bedding plants. Below is a hard tennis court which appears to have been built on the site of a former lawn ornamented by a sand or gravel path within immature shrubbery; low, formal flower beds were incorporated into this lawn. The lawn on the south of the house (formerly a croquet lawn) also connects to this feature by way of a third, uneven grass level. On the east side of the tennis court, higher up, is a roughly level tree-planted lawn. This lawn is bordered to the east by a mature shrubbery. The land to the south-east rises to the historic park boundary which is defined by a group of Scots pine. Beyond the shrubbery is an area of rough grass which may once have been a continuation of the garden. A simple farm gate connects this area to a triangular lawn, with relics of earlier flower beds, and which falls away to the east, to the north of the tree planted lawn. The walled kitchen garden is believed to be contemporary with the house (c.1860) and is sited near to it for convenience, lying immediately to its north-east and connected to it by the service wing. The garden covers about one acre and is on two levels, the ground rising by about 1m in the centre on a north-west/south-east line. Walling survives on the north-east and south-east sides. Both rise to about 2m, are capped, and are built of stone rubble with an interior brick skin. The north-west side of the garden is now defined by a building along its entire length. In 1931 the garden still contained a peach house and a vinery but it is unclear if one of the walls was heated (no evidence of a heated wall survives). Significant View: Views southeast across the park from the house and terraces. Views across the park from the approach drive. Sources: Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 26-8 (ref: PGW (Po)37(POW)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map: sheet Montgomeryshire XXIII NE (1884). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton