Derry Ormond was a substantial mansion, demolished in 1953, located on garden terracing on a south-facing slope on the west flank of the Dulas valley, to the immediate west and north-west of the hamlet of Betws Bledrws (nprn 96038). The location gave the house fine views over its small park and the tributary valley of the Nant Dyfel that runs through it. The park was originally laid out in a Reptonian picturesque manner. Nothing is known of the landscape here before John Jones inherited in 1817.

The park is bounded by woodland on the north and west, and by public roads on the east and south though formerly it extended further to the east. The present drive is a minor road north from Bettws Bledrws skirting the east side of the park. Two secondary drives off it run west along the north and south sides of the kitchen garden towards the house and service court. Another drive (actually the second main drive), formerly a private drive but now disused, took a long, winding course through the park, from a minor road to the west of the hamlet. At its south end is a small lodge (5367). The rest of the drive is now turfed over but its course remains visible. It ran north-westwards along the south side of the Dyfel valley then turns north across the stream over a stone bridge then north-eastwards up the slope and into the gardens and on to the forecourt on the east front.

The Dyfel stream which runs through the middle of the park was dammed to form three informal lakes, now silted up. Careful screen planting and water management ensured that from the house the upper two lakes appeared as one large sheet of water; the approach was engineered to be highly picturesque. From the house the culmination of the landscaping was the tower on the hilltop on the opposite side of the valley (23024). One of the most striking eye-catchers in Wales, the Derry Ormond Tower lies on former common land immediately to the south of the park.

The parkland on the flanks of the valley below the house is now largely treeless, aside from a few speciment trees. Banks of rhododendrons lie along the south side of the former lakes. Many trees, mostly oaks, were removed from the large field south of the garden in the late twentieth century. The backing wood behind the house, Allt Dildre, and the woods to the south-west of the park, Coed Gleision, remain but are now forestry plantations. Much of the park’s landscape chracter has now gone.

Sources:

Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 106-12 (ref: PGW(Dy)48(CER)).

Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map: sheet Cardiganshire XXXIV.NW (1886).

RCAHMW, 22 September 2020