Aberglasney house (nprn 17068) and grounds occupy an area of gently south-west facing land on the north side of the Towy Valley, to the west of the small village of Llangathen and some 5.5 km west of Llandeilo. The site nestles in the lee of Grongar hill, to the west, at about 40m ASL.

The grounds are important for the survival of the structure, and some trees, of formal gardens and an informal woodland garden of a long established country mansion. The most important feature is an arcaded court with raised walk around it (310136), probably dating to the early seventeenth century, though possibly later (see below). There are also two walled gardens, a pond, a gatehouse, a yew tunnel walk, and remains of woodland walks. Most information about the site’s history has come from archaeological excavation, which has revealed a major phase of building work on the gardens in the early seventeenth century. Aberglasney has undergone a major programme of rebuilding and restoration work in the late 1990s.
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Printed and documentary sources, archaeological excavation, dendrochronology and geophysical survey show that Aberglasney, a small country house was formerly a minor gentry farm, near Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire (SN 5815 2213). Traditions about its garden layout, parapet walkway, a gatehouse and a yew 'tunnel' have been scrutinised. Circa 1600, Bishop Anthony Rudd (1549-1615) probably built a 'cwrt' enclosure aligned north-south. The gatehouse may have belonged to this or a later house. In 1770 or later, the Dyer family re-built the house; probably later re-designing and re-walling the entire estate layout, when an earlier farm building was also converted into the 'parapet walkway' and spaces beneath which were originally stock pens. This farm building and its muckyard later became known as the 'cloistered court'. In Victorian times this feature became a pleasure garden, part of a typical Georgian-Victorian complex the complement of which included a kitchen garden, glasshouses, orchards and fishpond. According to dendrochrnology, a yew grove was established, c 1805 or later, when the Philipps family began planting in a picturesque style. Abandoned c.1950, house and garden became dilapidated. The site has been the object of a radical development programme since 1994, involving inter alia the stabilisation of all buildings fabric, and imposing modern, sixteenth-seventeenth century style formal gardens over the 18th-19th century kitchen garden and orchard. Although promotional literature for the site still (2002) claims this garden has its origins in the 16th century, this claim is currently unsupported either archaeologically or historically.
C.S.Briggs 13.07.05

Sources:
Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 86, 89-90 (ref: PGW(Dy)5(CAM)).
Ordnance Survey second edition 25-inch map: sheet Carmarthenshire XXXIII.14 (1905).
C.S.Briggs, ‘Aberglasney: the theory, history and archaeology of a post-medieval landscape’, Post-Medieval Archaeology 33 (1999), 242-284.

RCAHMW, 9 June 2022

Site Record

Aberglasney Garden, Llangathen