Wenvoe Castle, set in a landscape park (700315), lies on rolling ground between Wenvoe and Barry. It was largely the creation of Sir Edmund Thomas, third baronet, between 1733, when he inherited the estate, and his death in 1767. Gardens here were originally established with the sixteenth to seventeenth-century house on the site, by Thomas, with successive phases during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The gardens occupy a broad, roughly triangular area around the house, with the apex at the north end where the drive enters the grounds. The walled kitchen garden (700316) occupies the centre of the area, with the former shrubbery to the east, the house terrace to the south and south-west and a rock garden to the west.

The ground rises gently from the north end to a roughly level plateau, dropping away from the grounds on the south and west. The drive runs through a sparsely wooded area of oak and beech trees and continues, flanked by three pairs of Irish yews, through a small grassed area planted with pines and other conifers, to a square level platform now used as a car park. The rest of the house stands at the east end of the original east-west terrace built out over the south-facing slope, with a grass scarp below it. The terrace behind it known as the 'Green' is probably also early. In front of the house the terrace is partly paved, the remainder is grassed. Towards the west end of the garden the ground slopes westwards. In the centre of the slope overgrown and neglected stone-edged paths, with stone steps, lead from the west, north and east to a sunken area surrounded by large blocks of rockwork. This overgrown area is what remains of a substantial rock garden.

Other significant features include the remains of a fountain - a circular brick-lined pool on the south side of the kitchen garden - and nearby to the south several large mature trees, including two cedars, a horse chestnut, pines and other conifers. At the east end of the area - to the south of the east wall of the kitchen garden - a neglected iron archway leads into the former shrubbery, now a triangular area of seedling deciduous trees to the east of the kitchen garden. There is no trace of former paths.

Source:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 288-91 (ref: PGW(Gm)33(GLA)).

RCAHMW, 27 June 2022.