The grounds and gardens associated with St Beuno's college (Jesuit seminary), now a spiritualist retreat (nprn 400800), are located at Tremeirchion, to the east of St Asaph. Something of their development can be followed on early editions of the OS County series.

Like the house, the garden appears to have been built in two main periods. The first period of 1846-49, the college opening in 1849. The second period of building was in 1873-74 when the garden was extended, producing the layout depicted in 1899.
The gardens are mostly situated to the west, east and south of the main building on the steep west-facing slope on which the College is built, encouraging the use of terracing. There are shrubberies, formal terraces, an old drive in front of the college, and terraced kitchen gardens rise to the rear. Other features include a grotto, and a network of gravel paths now mostly grassed over. The fields to the south and east had some park-like tree planting. A path leads to the Rock chapel on Garreg Fawr on the southern edge of the grounds (266231). A cemetery for the college is situated to the south of the main kitchen garden terraces.

A golf course is depicted above the kitchen gardens on the 1912 editions and square and rectangular platforms shelved into the hillslope in between areas of historic ridge and furrow were observed from air photography.

Sources:
Cadw 1995 Register of Historic Parks and Gardens in Wales: Clwyd (1995), 236-8.
Ordnance Survey 25-inch maps: sheet Flint V.13, editions of 1872, 1899 & 1912.

David Leighton & John Wiles, RCAHMW, 17 June 2022

Site Record

Grounds and Gardens of St Beuno's College, Tremeirchion