The site of Dunraven Castle, now demolished (nprn 18581), 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. The walled garden lies in the valley bottom to the north-east of the house site, within the pleasure grounds that once surrounded the house (265800). There have been enclosures here since at least the sixteenth century when a walled 'paddock' was built in 1543. It has since undergone several phases of development, in particular after 1877, reflected in variations in wall construction, and it has now been partly restored.
The garden is a large rectangular area, orientated south-east/north-west, largely enclosed by a high, partly crenelated stone wall 3.5m-5m high. The interior slopes down towards the middle from the south-west and from north-east long sides. The garden is divided laterally into three compartments and its use was partly ornamental; the westernmost compartment may have had an entirely ornamental use.
The northern section walls are partly buttressed, with Gothic doorways near the east and west ends the north wall, the former accessing the adjoining stable block, now gone. In front of the north-east wall are the brick footings of the glasshouse, probably a vinery, and a row of five brick cold frames. Inside the footings are a brick path, pipework and a water tank. The interior is otherwise laid out with axial paths, lawns, grass, and the remains of built structures. The axial path down the centre of the garden, on which a pool (on the south-east) is aligned, remains as in 1877.
The middle compartment is bounded on the north by a stepped yellow-brick partition wall up to 3.5m high. The interior is largely grassed over, with paths across it, one to a doorway in the next cross-wall. The third compartment is ornamentally laid out with raised revetted, grassy, terraces at the north-east and south-west ends, and a large lawn in the middle. The terraces are accessed by central flights of steps, on the north-east also by diagonal flights at each end. There is a gothic doorway in the outer, south-west, wall. Part of the lawn was a tennis court, a small raised pavilion lies against the outer wall on the south-western terrace.
In the east corner is a round tower built into the walls, of rubble stone construction and a crenellated and slightly corbelled-out top. Its upper floor was for viewing and banqueting, the basement an ice-house, an egg-shaped chamber lined with brick (23073).
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, 30 November 2020