Vaynor Park, a restored early seventeenth-century brick house (nprn 21521), is located to the south-west of the village of Berriew. It lies within a landscape park of nineteenth-century date but with much earlier origins. Both house and grounds were re-modelled in the mid-nineteenth century by Thomas Penson for John Winder Lyon-Winder.

The park is linear, on steeply rolling ground, and extends from Berriew in the north-east to field boundaries on the south-west. It is bounded on the south by the road to Bettws Cadewain and on the north by a farm track.
The main drive enters the park from the east at Vaynor Lodge, designed by Penson and is contemporary with the house alterations ofc c.1840. The drive climbs westwards through the park, curving round to the north of the house, then southwards to the gatehouse. A branch continues south-westwards to run past the kitchen garden and continues westwards on a ridge top across the park. Near the kitchen garden another branch runs southwards to farm buildings and then south-east along another ridge top to a secondary entrance on the south boundary of the park. A track branching north-eastwards off the main drive, to the south of Crane Coppice, is the eastern end of the original drive. It skirts the south-east side of the wood then turns north to run along the east boundary of the park to a former entrance in the north corner.

The oldest part of the park is the largely wooded, steep-valleyed northern part, to the north of the house. This consists mainly of a steep-sided valley, orientated south-west by north-east. To the west of the house is a high ridge of rolling pasture above the valley with some hedge-line oaks on former field boundaries and a few isolated oaks. This part of the park encompasses Kennel Wood, Pen y Parc, Crane Coppice and the valley, and is the oldest part of the present park. It was probably developed in the early seventeenth century, when the house was built. The earliest plan showing the park is the estate map of 1746 for Lord Hereford.

The southern part of the park occupies more open rolling ground to the south and east of the house, and was probably added later. A large proportion of the park is open grassland, dotted with specimen trees and a few clumps. Trees are mostly oak, beech and cedars with some other conifers, including wellingtonias. The 1889 and 1903 Ordnance Survey maps show the park layout much as it is today. In the early twentieth century exotic introductions, including redwood, firs and cedars were planted in the park and walks were established in the woodland to the west of the gatehouse. A flight of stone steps leading off the drive to the kitchen garden leads to one of these walks and others also survive.

There are gardens around the house (265544) and, some distance away, a kitchen garden (700393). 

Source:
Cadw 1999: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Powys, pp 255-259 (ref: PGW (Po)32(POW)).

RCAHMW, 25 July 2022