Fferm is a late sixteenth or early seventeenth-century stone manor house which lies just off the north side of the A541 Mold-Wrexham road at Pontblyddyn (nprn 35820). It is approached down a part-cobbled farm lane. Two conjoined walled gardens are situated on the south and west sides of the house, both appearing in eighteenth-century surveys (c.1721-42 and 1766) with few differences from the present layout. The walls contain no dateable features but are presumed to be contemporary with the house.
The smaller garden, behind the house on its south side, has a low stone wall on two sides and may have been extended southwards at some stage. The garden here is at a higher level than the adjacent field. The north-eastern wall has a stone stile with a possible goose hole next to it. A former central path, now grassed over, leads from the door of the house to a wicket gate in the south wall, probably a late feature.
The second garden, the orchard (still planted with fruit trees), lies to the west between the smaller garden and the road. Roughly rectangular in shape, its south corner has been cut off by road widening. The stone walls are about 2.5m high, topped by nineteenth-century coping of upright stones. A linking doorway between the two gardens is situated in the east corner, on the outside of which is a dilapidated earth closet with a blocked door into the orchard. In the north corner an arched entrance, dating to 1590-1690, was probably originally sited in the north wall of the forecourt, the wall here made higher to accommodate the archway - a simple round-headed arch with dressed light coloured sandstone details. The archway and north corner of the orchard wall are not shown on an 1811 survey but appear in a watercolour painting of 1840-50.
Sources:
Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 78-80 (ref: PGW(C)29).
Ordnance Survey 25-inch map: sheet Flintshire XVII.1 (1899, second edition).
RCAHMW air photos: 94-CS 1546; 945166/60-1
Additional notes: David Leighton.
RCAHMW, 17 June 2022