Brookland Hall, A Victorian house to the south-west of Guilsfield (nprn 21329), is positioned on the edge of a small landscape park (700239). Around the south and south-east of the house lie formal gardens, contemporary with it, dating from about 1860. It appears that they were designed as a group of terraces around the walled kitchen garden (on the north side of the house, 700240) and ornamented in a High Victorian manner, though changes occurred during the twentieth century.

A wide tarmacked walk runs along the south side of the house above a rectangular terrace lawn, enclosed on the south by a line of trees. The walk runs around the east front of the house, to the west of a putting green, once a formal parterre containing small geometric beds of low bedding plants. Below the putting green (a 2m drop) is a hard tennis court which was formerly lawn ornamented by a sand or gravel path within shrubbery; low, formal flower beds were incorporated into this lawn. The lawn on the south of the house (formerly a croquet lawn) also connects to this feature by way of a third, uneven grass level. On the east side of the tennis court, higher up, is a roughly level tree-planted lawn. This lawn is bordered to the east by a mature shrubbery.

The land to the south-east rises to the historic park boundary which is defined by a group of Scots pine. Beyond the shrubbery is an abandoned area of rough grass which may once have been a continuation of the garden. A simple farm gate connects this area to a triangular lawn, with relics of earlier flower beds, and which falls away to the east, to the north of the tree planted lawn. This is bordered along the north by an overgrown hedge interplanted with yew. The garden walk continues along the outside of the walled kitchen garden (700240).
The drive on the south-west passes through an iron gate connected to nineteenth-century iron fencing which separates the garden from the park.

Sources:
Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, 26-8 (ref: PGW (Po)37(POW)).
Ordnance Survey first-edition six-inch map: sheet Montgomeryshire XXIII NE (1884).

RCAHMW, 13 June 2022