Stackpole Court and gardens lie 5km to the south of Pembroke town. The house site and gardens are located within parkland, the estate having origins dating from at least the twelfth century (nprn 700003). The last house on the site was demolished in the 1960s (125).
The three conjoined kitchen gardens are located to the west of the house site and to the south of the rose garden (265322). They were established in the eighteenth century to replace the former kitchen garden located east of the house in a valley that was flooded during the creation of the lake system. They comprise two main north and south gardens in a rectangular enclosure, long axis east by west, separated by a lateral cross-wall. Overall, it has three straight walls and an irregular south wall of three sections. Abutting on the east is a long rectangular enclosure divided in two longitudinally. Today the walls still stand mainly to over 4.5m high and are mostly, though not entirely, of brick.
The tithe award survey shows the north and south gardens as one enclosure of 4.2 acres with an extensive building against the south-facing, north wall. By 1875 10 ranges of glass are portrayed, including an extensive range along the inside of the north wall of the northern garden with rows of fruit trees in both enclosures and perimeter and cross paths. Set against the north-facing side of the north wall are two Palladian-style summer houses-cum-stores with hipped slate roofs. The northern enclosure is still under cultivation though the glasshouse range has gone. The south enclosure also appears to be in use though a glass range on the inside of the north wall appears now to be ruinous (APs).
To the east of the main enclosures glasshouses shown on early maps have survived in the smaller of the two longitudinal enclosures. The larger, on the east is also in use as open grass.
Adjacent to the gardens is Garden Cottage, built before 1875. Garden Lodge was built to the south of the walled gardens sometime after 1875.
Sources:
Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 310-16 (ref: PGW(Dy)44(PEM)).
Ordnance Survey six-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire XLIII (editions of 1864 & 1906); second-edition 25-inch map: sheet Pembrokeshire XLIII.5 (1906).