Cors-y-gedol Hall, a sixteenth-century house (nprn 28298), is situated to the south of Dyffryn Ardudwy, on the western slope of Snowdonia. It lies at the north-east end of wooded parkland (700181) and is surrounded by gardens. Like the park, the gardens were laid out in the eighteenth century and may have a medieval predecessor, the kitchen garden perhaps the original late sixteenth or early seventeenth century enclosed garden (700182); the forecourt must have come into existence at the latest when the gatehouse was built in 1630.
Aside from the kitchen garden, the surviving garden areas are small and lie close to the house, mostly on the south and west. A much larger garden area, present in the eighteenth century, is now a paddock. The original formal layout of the eighteenth century had been redesigned by the late nineteenth century to give a more natural effect.

On the south front of the house is a walled forecourt in which the gatehouse stands (28299). This forecourt, once occupied by flower beds, is now lawned and crossed by three parallel drives. East of the forecourt is shrubbery with the remains of a glasshouse and boiler house, an area also bounded by a wall beyond which are farm buildings. To the west, at a lower level, is a lawn, walled and partly revetted, with a large, oval, drystone walled pond on its west side; a water feature originally, but redesigned by 1901 to give it an informal shape. Large specimen trees which once dotted the lawn have now gone aside from a few near the north-west corner of the house.
At the rear of the house is a modern rockery, occupying the site of former buildings, demolished before 1951. The lower, western, side is occupied by a lawn, on its east a linear rockery retaining a further strip of lawn, with circular pool, at a higher level. To the east of this is another rockery, steep and incorporating some massive rocks, up to the wall of the farmhouse. The northern boundary of the area is the outgrown box hedge of the kitchen garden.

Sources:
Cadw 1998: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Conwy, Gwynedd & the Isle of Anglesey, 180-5 (ref: PGW(Gd)27(GWY)).
Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map: sheet Merionethshire XXXII.NW (1887).

RCAHMW, 19 May 2022