Plas Llangattock (Plas Llangattwg), an eighteenth-century gentry house with sixteenth-century origins (nprn 16087), is located on the north-east edge of Llangattock, on the west side of the public road through the village.

It is notable for its well-preserved and very fine gardens associated with the house and which contain two seventeenth-century cottage plots and the line of the old village road. The garden was re-designed in the 1930s, laid out mainly in 1937, and is a good example of a plantswoman’s garden, rich in botanical interest, it adopted the idea of ‘garden rooms’ popularised at the time by gardeners such as Lawrence Johnston and Vita Sackville-West. The kitchen garden includes an exceptional early nineteenth-century curved lean-to glasshouse.
The house is situated on a terrace within the oval-shaped gardens, divided into several areas, taking advantage of an earlier layout denoted by walled enclosures.

The grounds are entered at the north-east end of the garden through a pair of ornamental wrought iron gates fixed to dressed stone piers. Similar gates are found elsewhere in the locality and are thought to have been made in a forge in Glangrwyne. The drive leads to the north-east front continuing roughly in a loop around the lawn. A service drive branches off alongside the house connecting to the courtyard and stable court.
A large lawn is situated to the front of the house enclosed by informal shrub and tree planting, and bordered to the east and south-east by small formal gardens, within the old stone wall divisions. The circular lawn descends in two large terraces. A series of rocky paths along the north-east side appear to date from around 1937. A stone ha-ha separates the gardens from the meadow beyond. The meadow is bordered by the Nant Onneu a tributary of the river Usk. A small nineteenth-century footbridge crosses the stream. To the south of the stream there is a relict orchard. Both the orchard and the meadow are recorded on the tithe map of 1845.

The drive is enclosed along its south-east side by a high stone wall which also forms the north-west boundary of a pair of former cottage plots. The plots are now gardens within which is an exceptional early nineteenth century wrought iron framed glasshouse. The former boiler house, which provided heating for the glasshouse, is to the rear of the north wall.

Sources:
Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, pp.206-209, PGW (Po)45(POW).
RCAHMW air photos (02.09.2005) refs: AP_2005_1858/1860.

RCAHMW, 12 July 2022

Site Record

Plas Llangattwg, Garden and Grounds, Llangattock