PGW(Dy)13(CAM)

Taliaris  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Carmarthenshire  

Manordeilo and Salem  

263870  

227817  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Small formal garden surrounding house, pleasure grounds to the west, parkland to the south and two walled gardens to the east. Artificial lake now set in woodland.  

Probably extant in 1809, certainly so by 1840.  

Taliaris is located on the west side of the Dulais valley, between Llandeilo and Talley. It is registered for the essentially unaltered layout, during the last two hundred years, of its park and garden, although there is evidence for some change in land use. There is important group value with Grade I Listed Plas Taliaris (LB 10911), a nearby Grade II Listed cockpit (LB 10912), and Grade II Listed Taliaris Lodge (LB 15193). There are also historical associations with the family of the nineteenth-century statesman Sir Robert Peel. The parkland and gardens occupy a south to south-easterly facing slope and small valleys that have been created by streams that eventually drain into the Afon Dulais. The park bounded mostly by forestry. It has an irregular, ‘dumbbell’, linear plan extending from the B4302 in the south-east to the outer boundary of Gaer Plantation on the north-west, an area of undulating pasture rising to upland moor and forestry. The house is approached from a minor road from the east at Maerdy Farm. Formerly it was approached by a drive from the south-west at Taliaris Lodge. Although out of use the line is wooded with a mix of native and exotic trees. The house lies on the sorth-east side of the park. To its south and west the land retains a parkland character. In the forestry above the house to the north-west is Llyn Taliaris, a kidney-shaped lake, possibly part natural and part artificial, with surviving boathouse. To the west of the house, at the junction of two minor roads, are the remains of the header pond, with water control features, that once powered a sawmill. It is probable that the layout of the gardens has changed little over the last one hundred and fifty years or so. On the east front of the house is a decorative lawn, or croquet lawn, bordered to the north by small, grassed, terraces, and in the north-east corner of the upper terrace a conservatory. West of the house were the ‘pleasure grounds’, now overgrown but with mature deciduous and coniferous ornamental trees. In the northern area was the mill. To the south-east of the house, alongside the present access road, is an irregular, sub-triangular, area of about 1.75 acres enclosed by stone walls 2.5m-3m high, the internal south-facing north wall being brick lined, and with internal subdivisions. On the north wall are traces of a small glasshouse with the remains of a possible heating flue. Associated with the dividing wall and to the south of it are the remains of the stone-built tool sheds and gardener's bothy. The interior is partly used as an orchard and partly as a meditation retreat with a number of summer houses built. Setting - Taliaris lies in a rural setting to the north of Llandeilo. The structure of the park and gardens is relatively intact though there have been changes in land use. Some restoration work has been carried out. Significant views - From the south side of the house there are fine uninterrupted views across to the beech clumps at Llandeilo, and across the Towy valley to the Brecon Beacons beyond. Source: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 80-4 (ref: PGW(Dy)13(PEM)).