The site of Dunraven Castle, now demolished, lies on an exposed and elevated position on the northern flank of the Trwyn y Witch headland on the Bristol Channel, to the south of St Brides Major (nprn 18581). It is surrounded by parkland which includes pleasure grounds and a walled garden (265800; 700002), all dating from the sixteenth century, with subsequent alterations to the internal layout.

The park, probably of seventeenth-century date, lies to the north, east, and south-east of the house, on the rolling plateau above sea cliffs. It occupies a roughly rectangular area, wider at the north end, stretching from the Pant y Slade valley in the north to the edge of the Cwm Mawr valley in the south. The park is surrounded by a castellated rubble-built stone wall, now partly demolished, which ran up to the cliff edges. It is probably of the early nineteenth-century, replacing an earlier wall, and built when the lodges, entrances and drives were also made to go with Thomas Wyndham's new house.

There are three former entrance drives: The north-west entrance has gothic wooden gates and a gothic lodge (308223). Nearby, outside the park, is Seamouth Cottage, a rustic stone house with a thatched roof, possibly rendered picturesque as part of the early nineteenth-century landscaping. This drive with stunted horse chestnuts and sycamores on either side near the house, snakes around the walled garden and provides visitor access to the headland. The second drive approached from the east along the Pant Llawn-dwr valley, with the Grand Lodge at the park entrance. A further drive entered the park from the south-east, at Cwm Mawr lodge, now ruined. There was once a summer house to the south of the mansion site (506776).

The park appears to have received very little ornamental landscaping because of its exposed location. Most of the planting shown in open areas on nineteenth-century maps has gone and the park is now mostly open grassland. Two groups of pillow mounds are located on the castle headland (24502; 24503) and may be related to the developement of the planned landscape.

Sources:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 224-7 (ref: PGW(Gm)4(GLA)).
Ordnance Survey First-Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLIV (1877).

RCAHMW, 25 November 2020