PGW(Gd)27(GWY)

Cors-y-Gedol  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Gwynedd  

Dyffryn Ardudwy  

259624  

322627  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Woodland, park, formal and informal garden areas, kitchen garden, former gardens and formal plantations with intersecting paths.  

Eighteenth century or before; nineteenth century.  

Cors-y-gedol is registered for the historic interest of the remains of its grounds dating to the eighteenth century, or earlier, around the sixteenth-century house. The kitchen garden area may be contemporary with the house and there is an intact lime avenue of around 1735-40. Further developments occurred in the nineteenth century with the construction of the lodges. Cors-y-gedol has historical associations with the notable Vaughan family and later passed to the Mostyns. The registered area has group value with the house and the many associated listed estate buildings and structures. Cors-y-gedol Hall, a late sixteenth-century gentry house (LB: 4709), is situated to the south of Dyffryn Ardudwy, on the western slope of Snowdonia about 2.5km from the sea. It lies at the north-east end of wooded parkland which is bounded on the south by woodland, on the east by enclosed moorland, on the north by farmland and woods, and on the west by the villages of Llanddywe and Talybont. The park was laid out in the eighteenth century if not earlier. The main approach is between two lodges on the A496 road, through iron gates on stone piers (LB: 84343). The drive here is now a public road climbing straight and steady from the west, about 1.5km long. It crosses open fields, formerly part of the park, until it reaches woodland west of the house. It continues flanked by a lime avenue (c.1735-40) towards the house, passing a nineteenth-century lodge (LB: 84369) and late seventeenth or early eighteenth century gatepiers (LB: 4724), the public road diverting south. The main driveway up to the house and grounds formed part of the ambitious programme of development and remodelling of the house and grounds under the direction of Richard Vaughan, who inherited the estate in 1797. The main area of woodland, to the west and south-west of the house with an arm to the north-west and extensions west-south-west and east-north-east along the Afon Ysgethin, was probably originally natural woodland, extra species being added from at least the eighteenth century, though only a few trees survive from this period. The park in 1764, as shown on an estate map, and again in the nineteenth century was, as now, chiefly wooded with open areas. But there is no indication that specimen trees were ever scattered about these enclosures though trees of both eighteenth- and nineteenth-century date are to be found alongside paths, roads and tracks and on the field boundaries. On the south side of the drive the 1764 map shows several further areas with formal layouts of which little now remains. Several areas near the house were also laid out formally, with straight walks intersecting or in regular patterns, and there was also a network of curving rides in the further woodland. By 1889 the latter had been increased; many of the original routes were retained but several of the straight paths were lost. A few tracks still used are on the line of routes shown on the 1764 map. Paths in the woodland are said to have been stone-paved but most of them no longer seem to be. Terraces which are visible in the park farm enclosures are more likely to relate to prehistoric or Romano-British farming land use than to any later phase of parkland design; the park is superimposed on a landscape full of early features, including burial chambers, huts, fields and trackways (e.g. NPRN: 89047-68; 93724; 401827). Like the park, the gardens were laid out in the eighteenth century if not earlier. It is possible that the kitchen garden represents the original late sixteenth or early seventeenth century enclosed garden and the forecourt must have come into existence at the latest when the gatehouse was built in 1630. Aside from the kitchen garden, the surviving garden areas are small and lie close to the house, mostly on the south and west. A further area of garden south of the drive, extant in the eighteenth century, would have nearly trebled the garden size but this area is now a paddock. The original formal layout of the eighteenth century had been redesigned by the late nineteenth century to give a more natural effect. On the south front of the house is a walled forecourt (LB: 4723) in which the gatehouse (LB: 4722) stands. This forecourt, once occupied by flower beds, is now lawned. East of the forecourt is shrubbery with the remains of a glasshouse and boiler house, an area also bounded by a wall beyond which are farm buildings (LB: 4719; 4720; 84365; 84366). To the west, at a lower level, is a lawn, walled and partly revetted, with a large, oval, drystone walled pond on its west side; a water feature originally, but redesigned by 1901 to give it an informal shape. Large specimen trees which once dotted the lawn have now gone aside from a few near the north-west corner of the house. The large kitchen garden lies to the immediate north of the house. It probably represents the original formal garden layout being in place by 1734 but cartographic depictions show that it changed considerably between 1764 and 1901. The garden is rectangular and covers an area of about 2.5 acres. It has stone walls on the north, east and west but is bounded by a box hedge on the south. The east drystone wall is probably the only survivor of the original walls. Against the west wall, on the inside, is a raised walk, known as the 'Ladies' Walk' on a raised terrace running the entire length of the garden. An entrance to the garden on the west crosses this walk, with steps up and down. Aside from this there is very little trace of the path layout as shown on the early OS maps, though aerial images show parts of it. The main part of the garden is grazed by sheep, and there is now a large wooden barn, probably used for lambing. In the south-east corner an area fenced off with a cypress hedge has become a garden for the farmhouse. In the south-west corner an area has been fenced off which has been used as a tree nursery. Sale particulars of 1908 describe the kitchen garden as having 'fine ancient yew hedges and grass walks', and it was well stocked with fruit trees and had fine views (still the best in the garden, perhaps the reason for the construction of the 'Ladies' Walk'). There were a garden tool house, potting shed, oil shed, boiler house, saw shed, greenhouse and hothouse, vine house, glass peach house and glass frames, rose house and bee house. Nothing more than footings of any of these structures remains. Sources: Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 180-5 (ref: PGW(Gd)27(GWY)). Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map: sheet Merionethshire XXXII.NW (1887). Additional notes: C.S.Briggs; D.K.Leighton