PGW(C)41(DEN)

Llannerch Hall  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Denbighshire  

Waen  

305502  

372145  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Earthworks; formal terraced garden with canal; woodland garden; walled garden.  

c. 1660; 1927-1929.  

Registered for its historic significance as the site of one of the most famous Welsh historic gardens, created by Mutton Davies c. 1660, overlain by a 1920s garden designed by Percy Cane (1881-1976). The registered park and garden shares important group value with the hall and associated estate buildings and structures. Llannerch Hall (listed building) stands on elevated ground in the Vale of Clwyd, above the river Clwyd to the east. The earliest building on the site was a compact, tall Jacobean house built by Sir Peter Mutton at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The house was remodelled in about 1772 and again in 1862-64, when it took on its present appearance. By 1887 Llannerch was the seat of Sir George Cayley and by the 1920s Llannerch was the home of Captain and Mrs Piers Jones who called in Percy Cane to remodel the gardens between 1927 and 1929. The park lies to the east and south of the house on ground falling away to the river. It is bounded by minor roads on the south and east, by the former Vale of Clwyd railway on the west, and wooded dingles on the north-west. Three main drives, all with lodges, once served the estate - two on the south-east (Middle Lodge LB: 19211; Bottom Lodge 19210) and one on the south-west – but today only the latter is used. Prior to the building of the railway this drive reached the A525, where the former entrance is still marked by gate posts and former lodges either side. The later lodge is at an entrance flanked by stone gateposts and walls. The drives lead to a rectangular forecourt on the south side of the house, and to the stable yard. The park is now sparsely planted when compared with the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1880). Part of the park is now a golf course. The gardens at Llannerch date to two very distinct phases: the early 1660s and the 1920s. Of the first phase, an Italianate large-scale terraced garden of walled compartments, formal beds and planting, statues, ponds, and water tricks, created by Mutton Davies after a Grand Tour on the Continent, almost nothing remains. The gardens are known from two almost identical large oil paintings of c. 1662, which give a bird's-eye view of them. These gardens lasted until the end of the eighteenth century or the early years of the nineteenth century, when they were landscaped into a grass slope. John Claudius Loudon noted in 1822 that the 'whole place is modernised and the fine old house too much so'. Late nineteenth-century photographs show a terrace bounded by a revetment wall, running the length of the east side of the house, laid out with formal beds planted with bedding plants. In the late 1920s the existing gardens were altered and enlarged by the designer Percy Cane. Formal gardens were created immediately around the house, woodland gardens in two dingles to the north, and the old walled garden was utilized as a pleasure garden. Cane felt it was very important to be able to walk around a garden without having to retrace one's steps, and it was possible to do this at Llannerch. To the east of the house he laid out a garden in the Italianate style with a raised canal running north-south the length of the house on the already existing terrace (LB: 261). The canal widens at one end to make a formal pool (now converted to a swimming pool). The terrace is almost entirely paved with stone, with many flights of steps between levels. At the north end of the terrace is an arcaded loggia and summerhouse. Below the terrace are sloping lawns with shrub borders and specimen trees in the grass. Trees include a wellingtonia and deodar cedar. The garden is bounded on the east side by a stone retaining wall/ha-ha. The two wooded dingles, Park Dingle and Smithy Dingle, which form the boundary to the north, behind the house and farm buildings, are reached by a steep flight of stone steps at the north-east corner of the garden by the house. The dingles are part of the same small valley, and were laid out as a semi-natural woodland walk. To the west of the house and stables Percy Cane laid out a further area of pleasure garden, centred around the walled garden. Along the outside of the south wall of the walled garden was a long herbaceous border, of which only the Irish yews survive. Air photos suggest this area has now been significantly altered as the east part of the walled garden has been partly built on. On the north side of the walled garden was an area of lawn in which was a sunken swimming pool. Two terrace walls with steps led down to the pool surrounded by broad expanses of sloping grass. Again, building developments here have changed the local landscape. Significant Views: From the garden terrace across the park and towards the open countryside and hills beyond to the east, southeast and south. Wide open views to the south are also provided from the west drive. The house is prominent in views from the south and when approaching on the southeast drive. Llannerch features in the horticultural magazine Garden Design (1938), edited and published by Percy Cane, in which he describes the gardens setting at Llannerch: ‘It is essential in every garden, that any atmosphere or character, belonging to it should be developed in the most effective way. To introduce an alien note must, instead of increasing, inevitably lessen its charm. At Llannerch Park the scenery is unusually beautiful and it has the lovely lights and vivid colouring that belong to mountains. There is variety. On one side the hills seem to enclose the place, while on the other the park slopes away into an open valley.’ Sources: Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 156-8 (ref: PGW(C)41). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map, sheet: Flintshire VII (1874). Additional notes: D.K.Leighton