1. Picturesque garden, mainly of nineteenth century walks and plantings, with a remarkable surviving kitchen garden wall.
CSB 1995

2. Periodically, the house and garden at Nantgwyllt appear above the water line of the Caban Coch reservoir. A handful of features merit note. They were first photographed by Noel Jarman during the 1930s and there is at least one black and white photograph in the national Library of Wales.

The plantings in the area probably date to the turn of the 20th century. The stream passes a series of man-made features, including a picturesque bridge and a rill. Footings to the conservatory - probably no more than 10 years old before the valley flooded - survive to about 60 cm. But the most spectacular surviving feature is the stone-built rectangular structure as remarkable for its submarine survival to full wall height about 2 m, as for its original construction in a drystone technique using massive interlocking quarried stones. The garden was accessed through a gateway which survives complete with relieving arch stone; narrow paths can still be traced, their surfaces including broken plant pots and occasional domestic pottery. Outside this garden a terrace of rhododendrons had been felled. Its several component stumps can still be traced and urgent attention needs to be paid here to collecting specimens of botanical interest from the exposed soils when the reservoir water is low.

refs. Herbert Vaughan The South Wales Squires, 1926, 178-187; E.Tickell, The Vale of Nantgwilt: a submerged valley. illustrative and descriptive of the Eland and Claerwen Valleys in Radnorshire, shortly to be submerged by the Reservoirs for the water supply of Birmingham, London, Virtue, 1894; The Grange of Cwmdeuddwr pp 36-40 in Tickell (ed) 1894.
CSB 1988 and in text of unpublished article about Radnorshire Gardens, 1995.

3. This garden is depicted on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of Brecknockshire IV, sheet 7. Its main elements on that map include walk, parkland, terrace, kitchen garden, glasshouse, conservatory, carriage drive, sawmill, stream, footbridge and picturesque walks in woodland and parkland plantings.
C,S,Briggs 08.12.05.