Gwydir Uchaf (nprn 26556) is located opposite Gwydir Castle and its garden (26555 & 86386). It was built as a summer house in 1604 but was the main residence in the later seventeenth century. The site, on top of the crag above the main house, was chosen for its views. Around it lies the second area of the pleasure grounds, laid out with a summer house, a viewing mount, a viewing platform and (at a distance) a bowling green. There are also the remains of a contemporary family chapel (nprn 43667). This area was linked to the castle by a zigzag path down the hill known as Lady Mary's Walk. To the south of the house and garden was the deer-park (700063). 

The platform and mount, an orchard enclosure, and walled garden are perhaps the surviving remnants of the original garden here. After abandonment, partial demolition, nineteenth-century restoration, and later neglect, Gwydir Uchaf and its garden features have been rediscovered and cleared. The rubble-revetted viewing platform, now used as a carpark, lies just east of the house. The viewing mount, west of the house and immediately behind the chapel, is about 50m in diameter, ascended by a spiral path edged with holly. A former orchard, later a nursery, was to the south of the viewing mount where an odd-shaped enclosure survives. The kitchen garden, just south-east of the house, is a half-acre walled garden now sub-divided and occupied by two modern houses; little remains except the walls. The bowling green is magnificently sited on the edge of outcrop some 700m south of Gwydir Uchaf. It may date from the early seventeenth century. A nearby, partly-paved, hollow way descends to join the road just south of the castle and could have been used to access it.

Sources:
Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 100-5 (ref: PGW(Gd)4(CON)).
Ordnance Survey second-edition 25-inch map: sheet Denbighshire XVI.1 (1900).
RCAHMW air photos: 94-CS 0803; 945112/49; 965127/48.

RCAHMW, 24 March 2022