Warpool Court, a house dating from 1865-70 and now used as a hotel (nprn 30379), is located a short distance to the south of St David’s, between the town and St Non’s Bay. The ground drops gently from the house towards the coast to the south and west, giving panoramic views to the sea and offshore islands. The site is notable for its unusual Italianate garden.

The gardens were developed in two main stages. Initially, the walled kitchen garden, to the east of the house, was built after 1880 (700232) when the grounds to the south were then informal, planted with specimen conifers. Then, following a change of ownership in 1899 the present garden south of the house was created in 1902 and has been little changed since. The drive was rerouted to its present position at this time, to follow a south-west line from the north to the forecourt on the (north) front of the hotel. The drive is flanked by alternating clipped privet bushes and sycamore trees, backed by a tall privet hedge on the east. To the west of the drive is a grass field and to the east a lawn and hard tennis courts, with a row of sycamores along the south side of the area. The garden is bounded by a rubble stone wall. The west side of the hotel is lawn, with a belt of trees and shrubs next to the perimeter wall.

To the south of the hotel a rectangular area has been laid out as the main garden: a terrace adjoining the house; and formal lawn below it. Red and black brick and red tiles are used throughout, the style and ornaments loosely Italianate. The terrace is edged with a decorative arched parapet. Below it to the east is a small lawn flanked by mixed shrubs. From the terrace centre a flight of steps descends to the main lawn, sloping slightly southwards. It is bounded by a privet hedge on its south and west sides and by a small sycamore wood on the east.
There is a modern, covered swimming pool in its north-east corner. Along the foot of the terrace wall is a flowerbed. At the west end is a suntrap, or  ‘hemicycle’, a hemispherical area of stone paving backed by a high stone revetment wall on the west side with a low stone bench at centre. The central vista down the lawn is flanked by two Italian marble statues on tall plinths. Against the west boundary wall of the garden is an elaborate gothic doorway, and above the door a date plaque of 1902. Against the east boundary wall is a rubble stone tower, now disused, which originally served both as a pumphouse for sewage and as a folly tower. The north-east side of the garden is bounded by the wall of the kitchen garden with arched doorway access.

Source:
Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 326-8 (ref: PGW Dy68(PEM)).

RCAHMW, 10 June 2022