Rheola House, an early nineteenth-century house by John Nash (nprn 19836), is located on the north side of the Neath valley, about 2km north-east of Resolven. It is notable for the survival of a contemporary designed landscape which provided the picturesque setting to the country house. It has historical associations with John Nash (1752-1835) who designed the house and some of the picturesque estate buildings, and with Nash’s collaborator, designer George Repton (1786-1858) who visited Rheola in 1814. Rheola is recorded in paintings by Thomas Hornor (1785-1844) and its situation in the Vale of Neath attracted many eighteenth and early nineteenth-century artists.

Rheola was built as a romantic, overgrown cottage, rather than a mansion, in a natural setting. It lies on levelled ground at the southern end of the narrow tributary valley of the Rheola Brook. The park was created by the removal of the public road c.300m to the south, to run next to the Neath canal. This was done in 1828-29 by John Edwards, after he inherited the property in 1820.  As a close associate of Nash he was probably influenced by him in his landscaping ideas. A two-storey lodge (nprn 302292) stands at the entrance where the drive enters the park off the A465. The lodge, built in 1815, was in existence by 1877 (Ordnance Survey map) and was probably created soon after the road was moved. It was possibly converted from an existing farmhouse or cottage, perhaps the one in Repton’s Pavilion Notebook, designed by Nash as a ‘Farm house for Mr Edwards’, to which it has considerable similarities.

There is now very little parkland at Rheola, partly due to the Nash and the Edwards family approach to landscaping in maintaining the simple, rural, picturesque setting, but partly also to the occupation of a large part of the former park to the south of the house by a wartime aluminium works, now demolished. East of the house the park is mainly a gently sloping lawn leading down to a large pond, Rheola Pond, created c.1840. To the north of the park the whole area is backed by the wooded flank of the Vale. The lower part of the wood is deciduous and includes rhododendrons; above are commercial conifer plantations. An ice house (412621) is built into the sloping ground to the northwest of Rheola pond.

Nash also designed picturesque buildings to be viewed from the house and garden to enhance the picturesque qualities of the landscape and setting of the house. Nash also designed the steward’s house, now Brynawel (nprn 401874), a drawing of it in Repton’s Pavilion Notebook, dated ‘Novr. 1818’.  This would originally have been a picturesque object viewed from the house. A chapel to the south of Brynawel overlooking the lake, built in the mid nineteenth century, would have occupied part of the view across the park and pond from the house, but has since been demolished.

Around the house are gardens, including a kitchen garden (700371-2).

Source:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan pp129-131 (PGW(Gm)53(NEP))

RCAHMW, 15 July 2022