Llantrithyd Place, its outbuildings, gardens and wells, form a sixteenth-century complex of great historical interest. They were made by families of high social status within the county and the gardens in particular are of a scale and sophistication that is rare not only in the immediate locality but in Wales as a whole. The house is now a ruin (nprn 19195). A seventeenth-century deer park, part of the estate, is located a short distance to the north (700061).

The house and grounds lie on the immediate south side of Llantrithyd. They were entered off the road which bounds the north-west side of the property, leading to an outer court or garden terrace to the south-west of the house. The garden lies mostly to the east and south-east of the house ruins, in the small valley of the Nant Llantriddyd. The ground slopes down to the valley floor from the house, and from the churchyard on the west, and then rises more steeply on the east side of the valley. The valley widens out at the south end of the gardens, with woodland on the slope to the south-east and pasture to the south-west.

The garden constitutes a complex formal layout of terraces, walks, water channels and ponds. From the house it was reached by a wide walkway leading south-eastwards from a doorway in the early seventeenth-century extension to the house, an area previously part of the garden. This walkway is the backbone of the entire garden, running straight from the house down into the valley and up the other side to a look-out mount or gazebo. To the north of the walk the garden is laid out with two terraces below the churchyard, buildings and ponds below and a further terrace to the east of the canalised stream. To the south of the walk is a large garden enclosure, through which the canalised stream runs, that may have held a further fishpond. The two halves of the garden were connected by a walk which ran underneath the raised walk, opposite the second terrace. Three covered wells that supplied water to the house, via an underground pipe, are situated on the flank of the valley a short distance to the south of the gardens.

The gardens are probably sixteenth-century in date, made when the house was built in the mid sixteenth century by John Thomas Basset, and were added to by Anthony Mansel later in the century. The property was abandoned by the Aubreys in the early nineteenth century.

Sources:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 254-9 (ref: PGW(Gm)43(GLA)).
RCAHMW air photos: AP955176/49, 51.

RCAHMW, 22 March 2022

Site Record

Llantrithyd Place Garden Earthworks, Cowbridge