PGW(Dy)16(PEM)

Castle Hall  

II*  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Pembrokeshire  

Milford Haven  

191774  

205840  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Landscaped garden & pleasure grounds.  

Former raised drive, now supporting later terrace about 1780, landscaped about 1804, with additional features about 1850.  

Registered for the historic interest of its early nineteenth-century gardens incorporating some late eighteenth-century features. The gardens include two substantial terraces associated with the house (house demolished 1930s); fine entrances at the approach and elsewhere; a grotto; a lake; further terracing with a range of glass and an enigmatic garden structure formerly referred to as a 'pinery'. The registered area has group value with the surviving garden structures, some of which are designated as listed buildings. The site of Castle Hall is to the east of the town of Milford Haven, overlooking the Haven and an inlet known as Castle Pill. The present house is a modern structure built on part of the earlier house platform after the demolition of the mid-nineteenth century house in the 1930s. This and previous house sites all lie at about 35m ASL, giving views towards Milford and across the Haven towards Angle. The formal gardens, small rectangular beds with a central circular bed, existed by 1769 (estate map) falling west of the house towards a pool and the shore. An enclosed orchard then lay to the north of the house. There followed a history of landscaping spanning the next 150 years. The present, early nineteenth-century gardens, include two substantial terraces associated with the house (LB: 12913’ 12914). There is also further terracing with a range of glass and an enigmatic garden structure formerly referred to as a 'pinery'. There are fine entrances at the approach (LB; 12910) and elsewhere (LB: 12911; 12912) a grotto and a lake with islands. By the early nineteenth century the slopes around the house were described by Fenton as ‘charmingly wooded’. The terraces were probably part of the estate improvements made by Benjamin Rotch c.1810. Mr Benjamin Rotch bought Castle Hall in 1804 and extensively transformed the grounds before 1817, when he was bankrupted. Rotch was a North American Quaker, owner of whaling ships and leading figure in the group invited to settle in Milford by Charles Greville to establish Milford as a whaling port. He also established the first bank in Milford, The 1818 sale particulars refer to a 'capital conservatory, pineries, peachery, green-house and fish-pond' and his daughter's memoirs refer to an iron and glass orangery and three pineries, hot, hotter and hottest in which 250-300 pineapples were grown a year. The house site, stable block (LB: 12909) and gardens together occupy a little more than 10 acres, of which a quarter acre is the lake. The gardens are formed in a now dry, shallow valley which slopes from the house down towards Castle Pill, giving the garden a mostly west-facing aspect. The present house site is towards the east of the original house platform. Below this platform are steps leading to the two terraces; to the north of the lower terrace a further flight of steps gives access to the main garden area. Immediately below and to the west of the lower terrace is the tennis court and below that again is the lake. The main entrance to the house is off Castle Hall Road to the north (formerly a drive) where the stone boundary wall rises, in places, to above 4.5m. At the entrance to the drive is a wide masonry carriage arch (LB: 12910), nearby are the remains of a gatehouse. Though early surveys give very little indication of the exact route of former drives, two lodges are shown on early Ordnance Survey maps, one to the north (western drives) and another on the east (LB: 12916). The area between these lodges is shown as parkland in the nineteenth century but is now a housing estate. Also present is the site of the orangery, to the east of the gate, and which included a heated wall. This is now marked by low brick walls. Significant Views: Views towards Milford and across the Haven towards Angle. Sources: Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 180-85 (ref: PGW(Dy)16(PEM)). Ordnance Survey County Series six-inch plan: sheet Pembrokeshire XXXIII.7 (1862)