1772 Estate map of lands of Ffosrhydgaled amounts to 208acres. No buildings or garden features are shown (Ffosrhydgaled Manuscript 20). 1845 Tithe map shows a farmhouse with an adjoining rectangle of farm buildings. Access was by what is now the rear of the southern drive. There was no walled garden. The house was improved and aggrandised by James Davies in the 1860's.

1888/1904 OS 1st/2nd Edition 25inch shows the improved mansion accompanied by new or extended outbuildings, a sluice and mill, a second drive approaching the front (north east face of the house) and native and ornamental plantings around the approaches to the house which form a screen alongside the public road to Chancery. A flat platform supported by a ha-ha extended eastward from the front of the house and a rectangular enclosed garden lay to the north west. The ha-ha terminated in a bow in front of the house and was replaced to the west by a rail fence. The rectangular kitchen garden was approached by the meandering path down the slope from the rear of the house and entered through a small iron gate. The kitchen garden, itself was hedged rather than walled and contained old, T-shaped espaliered apple trees. The mansion was gutted by fire on 10.04.1911 and was rebuilt in the original form with some subsequent additions.

The Drives: The older, southern drive is now the service entrance, some felling on its south side accommodates the staff car park. The drive is margined on its south side by regularly spaced elm stumps of a former avenue. The new northern drive is enclosed on both sides by sloping banks with clipped rhododendron hedging. A similar path encloses the descent to summerhouse and tennis court platform to the west of the house. The entire shrubbery area west of the house has a canopy of beech trees, (many were lost in storms of 1988), and some large Douglas fir. Small footpaths form a network throughout the shrubbery with slate or early concrete slabs bridging an extensive system of rills draining the surface water toward the road. An iron gate, with wheelbarrow ramp enters the shrubbery from the rear, older drive. This footpath is marked on the 1888 map, and the entire shrubbery, except for recent planting, is consistent with this date.

The Outbuildings: The sluice pool, built since the tithe map of 1845 and marked on the 1888 O.S. map remains as a deep and neglected pond. A causeway extension of the old rear drive holds back the margin. Brickwork bears the imprint of the Park Brick and Tile Company, Newton. It serves an underground leet to the mill, where the water wheel pit is visible at the north corner of the rectangular range of outbuildings.

The Ha-Ha: The former ha-ha terminated at the end of a curve in front of the bay window of the house. Since the fire it has been extended past the kitchen garden to form a lawned causeway walled at both sides. The entire ha-ha, old and new, is capped with curved blue engineering brick.

The Kitchen Garden: This was apparently remodelled subsequent to 1904 map to replace the 20 x 40 rectangle with a more informal enclosure which retained the original gravelled axial path but extended the ornamental garden south westward up the slope beside the house.

WHGT Ceredigion 1997