Pwll-y-wrach Georgian mansion, dating from c.1770, is located to the east of Colwinston in gently rolling countryside (nprn 19787). Gardens lie mainly to the south and west of the house on ground sloping gently down to the south. They fall into two main areas: the informal garden to the south (265802), and the walled garden to the west.

The walled garden, a former kitchen garden now mostly ornamental, lies west of the house and is entered along a path from the east. It is a large rectangular area aligned north-east by south-west, bounded by rubble walls of variable height up to 4.5m high, except on the east where it is bounded by a yew hedge on the footings of the wall. Outside of the north wall is a shelter belt of trees and a yew hedge. A central east-west path is flanked by herbaceaous borders, as is a path alongside the north wall. The south-west quadrant is laid out to lawn with a fruit cage and some fruit trees. A wide grass path runs along the south side. In the centre of the south-east quadrant, set in lawn, is a roughly circular, stone-lined pool; unusual in a walled garden and present in the nineteenth century; it may utilise a spring, and perhaps the name of the house - Pwll-ywrach, or Witch’s Pool - derives from it.
The north-west quadrant is used as a kitchen garden with a modern glasshouse against the north wall. The west wall here, flanked by a border partly forms the front wall of an outside bothy building reached by a door in the wall. To the south a wide modern entrance leads to a wooded area and from it a stone-edged path with a border of ornamental trees.

The field to the north of the walled garden contains some ornamental tree planting in the form of a double row of horse chestnuts. Further isolated examples grow in this field and in that to the north-east.

Sources:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 274-7 (ref: PGW(Gm)44(GLA)).
Ordnance Survey First Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XLV (1877).

RCAHMW, 12 May 2022

Site Record

Pwll-y-wrach Kitchen Garden, Colwinston