Plas Newydd and its gardens, now a public park, are located in Llangollen on the south side of the Dee valley. They are registered for the survival of most of the structure of the gardens of Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, the so-called 'Ladies of Llangollen', created  between 1780 and 1831. In their time the gardens were thought to be a fine example of romantic gardening and were much visited. Plas Newydd is situated on high ground on the south side of Llangollen, above the narrow valley of the river Cufflymen to the east. Butler and Ponsonby made the gardens in a landscape surrounded by fields. Their creation was strongly influenced by romantic literature and by writings on the picturesque. Changes were made by later owners including General John Yorke of Erddig.

The gardens lie to the south, east and north-east of the house. They occupy a roughly oval area, elongated north-south, and are entered from the south-west along a winding drive flanked by large beech trees. The house lies in the north-west corner of the garden area (nprn 27760). The gardens fall into two distinct parts: the upper garden and the lower garden.

The upper garden, to the north-east of the house, was created as a romantic garden but is now more formal. The upper garden is mostly on level ground to the south of the house. In front of the house is a line of yew topiary and beyond it a circular formal parterre of box-edged beds and golden yew mounds, with the base of Chester High Cross (fifteenth-century) in the centre, flanked by two stone fonts from Valle Crucis Abbey and Llangollen parish church. To the west is a laurel hedge and a tree and shrub border along the boundary. On the south is a lawn bounded by yew topiary and evergreen shrubs and trees and with a Gorsedd circle. Between the circle and the house is a dovecot (37231).

Steps on the east side of the lawn lead to a path down to the top of the lower garden (700088). Nearby stands a tall half-timbered water tower and a small stone pavilion, the 'Bards' Memorial' of 1958. It stands on the site of General Yorke's peacock house. To its south are some outbuildings (stores and a greenhouse). A large rectangular lawn to the south with a raised walk is bounded by hedges. A shrubbery of trees and underplanting at the south end lies above steep ravine of the Cufflymen.

North-east of the house is a narrow sloping lawn with golden yews, bounded on the north-west by a laurel hedge, modern paths and flowerbeds next to the house. To the south-east are evergreen shrubs and trees, and at the north-west end a shrubbery of mixed deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs, a survival of the original design. It is bounded on the north-east side by a revetment wall and beyond it a meadow sloping down to the river.

The gardens have changed greatly since their original appearance, mainly through the work of General Yorke in the later nineteenth century. Then, between 1890 and 1910 when owned by Mr G.H. Robertson, the formal garden in front of the house was created, and in 1908 the Gorsedd circle was erected on the lawn next to it for the National Eisteddfod. Despite the removal of all their rustic and romantic adornments and of the plantings of flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants, the basic structure of the original gardens remains, and they have not been encroached on.

The lower garden is an area of ornamented wild woodland (700088). 

Source:
Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 208-11 (ref: PGW(C)48(DEN)).

RCAHMW, 12 April 2022