Margam Park is located on the east side of Swansea Bay. It is a large park of varying character, a triangular block of land  situated between the ridge of Mynydd Margam to the north and north-east, and widening to the (now industrialised) coastal plain to the west. The site is an ancient one with remains of prehistoric, early historic, Cistercian and later settlement. The park has origins in the Tudor period, if not earlier. The park is roughly triangular and is almost completely surrounded by a substantial rubble stone wall, in places ruinous though parts of it, particularly along the A48 on the south side, are rebuilt (nprn 19296). The house, Margam Castle - a nineteenth-century Tudor and Gothic mansion built for C.R.M. Talbot - lies towards the west side of its southern half (19291). The park underwent many changes but Talbot transformed it from 1828 onwards.

The park forms three main areas. The first is the low-lying undulating ground of the southern half, bounded on the west by the Castle grounds and gardens and on the north by the steep, rocky ridge of Craig y Lodge, partly wooded, and the A48 along the south side. It is transected by a drive from a grand entrance flanked by two lodges (401866), towards the southern end of the east side of the park. Notable features include Furzemill Pond, several fields, woods and plantations south of the drive, largely open grassland in front of the house, a cricket ground, nineteenth-century volunteer rifle ranges, and the modern entrance drive from the east, off the A48.

Secondly, and contrastingly, there is the wooded valley, lake and Mynydd y Castell hillfort dominating the park from its west end (301336), all to the north and north-west of the house. The southern end of the valley is occupied by a triangular lake, and around it the former west drive running through woodland to the west; West Lodge survives though it now lies beneath the M4. At the north end the drive passes over a single-arched stone bridge. The stream below it is ornamented with a stepped cascade. The lake is fringed by deciduous trees and rhododendrons. Features here include the ruins of a monastic mill, Cryke mill; the ruins of Hen Eglwys, or Cryke chapel, a fifteenth-century church on the mixed woodland slopes (307267); a stone bath house for the abbey monks; the Lady’s Seat, an ornamental feature on a track flanking the stream north of the lake; and ‘Hen Gastell, the footings of an old building on the craggy south end of the hillfort with spectacular views across the park and the Bristol Channel beyond.

The third area is the Upper Park, on the north, a roughly triangular area on a high, gently rolling plateau above the ridge, with a valley, Cwm Philip, along its north-west side. This area has always been labelled ‘Deer Park’ by the Ordnance Survey. It predates the present park, its earthwork boundary visible along Craig y Lodge scarp (below St Illtyd's Walk). A herd of deer is still kept in the park. On the top of the steep scarp is the ‘Bro’ monument, a modern construction of an inscribed standing stone set on a square viewing platform next to the remains of Lodge Isaf. In the east wall is the site of Lodge Uchaf. Both are shown on the OS 1876 map but there seems never to have been a lodge at the latter.

The park is now in use as a country park given over to various recreational pursuits (19295).

Sources:
Cadw 2000: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Glamorgan, 102-113 (ref: PGW(Gm)52(NEP)).
Ordnance Survey First Edition six-inch map, sheet: Glamorgan XXXIII.NW (1876).

RCAHMW, 19 May 2022