Cefn Tilla park (nprn 700337) was created in 1856 when the house and some land were bought for the second Lord Raglan.

The garden lies to the south, east and north-east Cefn Tilla Court (36608) and was created in two main phases - in the seventeenth century and soon after 1856. The rectangular terraced area enclosed by dry-stone walling south of the house probably represents the extent of the original seventeenth-century garden. The rest of the garden layout - the terracing and topiary walk east of the house, the arboretum, the outer paths and forecourt - belongs to the mid nineteenth-century phase as does much of the tree and some of the shrub planting. The informal arboretum to the north-east of the house retains some of its Victorian feel with more recent planting of trees and shrubs. Some of the largest trees date from the 1850s and a few Victorian rhododendrons remain, though only a relic of their former extent. A small ornamental pond in this area was enlarged and deepened by the present owner’s family. There is evidence that the ground to the north of the house was originally sloping and that it was raised and levelled in the 1850s using a considerable depth of rubble and soil.

About 100m south of the house is the disused kitchen garden of nineteenth-century date. Square in shape, its brick walls surviving to full height with doorways in the centre of each wall, and lean-to bothies of brick and slate against the outside of the north wall. To the north is an outer garden, portrayed as an orchard on early maps, also of nineteenth century date.

Sources:
Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Gwent, 22-3 (ref: PGW(Gt)31.
Ordnance Survey first-edition 25-inch map, sheet: Monmouth. XIX.12 (1882).
RCAHMW air photos: 94-CS 0404; 945056/52-3.

RCAHMW, 28 June 2022