Margam Castle and Park are located on the east side of Swansea Bay (nprns 19291 & 700179). The gardens lie mainly to the west of the house (265727). The former kitchen garden was built in the 1830s and is located along the north-west edge of the gardens bounded on its north side by the lane to the church. The garden was developed on the site of the old village of Margam (15356), the public road to the church being rerouted around its north side.

The garden forms an irregular rectangle of 5 acres (2ha), long axis east by west, tapering at each end. Its walls, 3.5m-4.5m high, are of varying character and may be of several phases (404787). The south boundary is discontinuous. Its east end is a massive, buttressed, wall, on the outer side of which is an earth bank planted with azaleas. Near the centre, the Citrus House, set back from the garden, partly forms the boundary.

The interior is sub-divided into four main areas, delimited by paths which largely mirror the nineteenth-century pattern. The east end is partly laid out as three large, grass terraces, linked by steps, supporting geometric flower beds. At the east end on the upper terrace is a dry, stone-lined water channel, possibly of monastic origin. There is a yard on the north side of the garden. On the south side is a row of single-storey lean-to bothies built against the stone back wall of a long, lean-to glasshouse dating to about 1890. Other glasshouses have gone and much of the space is occupied by polytunnels. To the west of the terraces and glasshouse is a modern grass amphitheatre with a heather and conifer garden to its north. The fourth area is a large, modern, cypress hedge maze, which occupied most of the western end of the garden; it is not clear if this survives.

Sources:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 102-113 (ref: PGW(Gm)52(NEP)).
Ordnance Survey Second Edition 25-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXIII.7 (1897).
RCAHMW air photos: 96-CS 1399-1400.
Additional notes: D.K.Leighton.

RCAHMW, 19 May 2022

Site Record

Margam Castle Kitchen Garden, Port Talbot