Parklands & Gardens of Wales No:PGW.
RCAHMW AP955171/64, 66
Associated with: St Fagan's Mansion (Nprn 19909) and Museum (Nprn31920).

1. ST FAGANS CASTLE St Fagans Castle has one of the most important historic gardens in Wales. It is a multi-period, extensive garden in compartments and terraces with underlying Tudor structure, now predominantly Victorian and Edwardian, retaining much of its layout and structural planting. The formalised ponds may be mediaeval in origin and were certainly in existence in the sixteenth century. To their north is a water garden designed and built by the famous Victorian rockwork and water garden designers, Pulham and Co. Survival in part of an unusual experimental woodland laid out with axial rides at the beginning of the twentieth century.
It was constructed mainly 1560-96; 1855-70s; 1898-1935 and 1908.

The gardens lie to the north, east and west of the Castle, to the east of the woodland grounds (nprn 700026). They occupy a rectangular area through which a tributary to the river Ely runs from north to south. The ground drops steeply from the house to the valley bottom to the west, rising more gently on the other side. They partly overlie, and have adapted, a medieval landscape of castle, parsonage, village and fishponds.

The gardens are bounded by substantial stone walls and can be divided into five distinct areas: the forecourts to the east, the compartments to the north, the terraces and ponds, the informal wood and water gardens, and the compartments at the north end of the garden.

The main approach to the house is from the east, into the wooded entrance garden bounded by walls (19920). An axial central walk flanked by pleached limes leads to the inner forecourt through an arched entrance in the curtain wall of the medieval castle (19918). A doorway on the north side leads into the gardens.

The main garden area comprises the compartments north of the house, the whole bounded by stone walls and subdivided either by walls or hedging. The first compartment, next to the house, is the Parterre or Dutch Garden, with battlement wall and watchtowers. In the centre of the parterre is an Italianate marble fountain. The northern half of the compartment is a bowling green lawn. The east-west path leads eastwards under a hornbeam tunnel to two further compartments; the Knot Garden  the Herb Garden.

The second compartment to the north of the Parterre is the Mulberry Garden, accessed from the bowlling green through an ornamental gateway. It is laid out to lawn planted with an orchard of mulberry trees, bounded by walls on all but the east side where steps lead up to glasshouses dating to 1920-40.

Conjoining the Mulberry Garden and glasshouse area is the walled former kitchen garden which contains Gardens House, the former head gardener’s house. Behind it is the east boundary wall of the grounds. To the north west is an informal area of lawn, trees and shrubs. To the north again is the area known as the Ilex Grove, planted with evergreen oaks, bounded on the east by a wall (LB 13894). This is partly the wall of the Italian Garden, a rectangular walled compartment which lies behind the Ilex Grove.

The third main area of the gardens is the terraces and ponds. Three Italianate terraces, supported by retaining walls, lie on the steep slope descending westwards to the valley floor, backed on the east by the wall of the Dutch Garden. The terraces have gravel walkways and shrub borders and are linked by flights of steps. At the southern end is a steep descent, by a high flight of steps, to the fishponds. A series of four formal, stone-lined ponds, aligned north by south, lie in the flat valley bottom, fed by a stream at the north end. All have grassy flat-topped dams with narrow sluice channels. On the south, near the head of the ponds, is a  dovecote (37676).

The fourth area of gardens is the informal woodland and water garden on the west side of the valley to the north of the ponds. The stream, bordered by conglomerate rockwork, winds through an area of undulating lawn planted with ornamental trees, including willow, hawthorn, flowering cherries and magnolias. A path crosses the stream towards the south end over a low stone bridge beneath which is a small waterfall. A path leads to the Stryt Lydan barn, a sixteenth-century barn brought from near Penley in Flintshire.

The last area of the gardens is the compartments at the north end variously enclosed by hedges and walls up to 4m high. Features include a lawn planted with four rows of pleached hornbeams; several terraces; a rectangular pool, a former swimming pool (415820); a rebuilt eighteenth-century woollen factory from Llanwrtyd; and a triangular walled area of grass planted with specimen trees.

2. This garden is depicted on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of Glamorgan XLII, sheet 12 (1900). Its main elements on that map include kitchen garden, woodland with vista paths, woodland, walled garden, walk, well, kennels, formal garden, parterres, pheasantry, terrace walls, contrived antiquity, conservatory, possibly another formal garden, fountain, greenhouses and orchard. C.H. Nicholas, RCAHMW, 18th August 2006.