The multi-period garden at Tower (36266 ) occupies an irregular area around the house. It comprises a lawn, a grassy bank leading down to a lake with an area of mixed informal planting, and a kitchen garden.The history of the garden is one of alterations over four centuries, but vestiges remain from several periods.

Immediately around the house the garden is laid out to lawn, a former tennis court or croquet lawn cut into the slope to the south-west. On the east the lawn is bounded on its north side by a stone wall next to the house, and then by the walls of the former kitchen garden (700279). Below the lawn, to the south-east, are rough stone steps and a grass bank down to an irregularly-shaped small lake, the western end of which is roughly rectangular, aligned with the south front of the house. The lake, enlarged to the east between 1871 and 1898, has a small island and a substantial dam at its western end. The west and north sides are straight, and a sloping path runs the length of the west side down to a path along the rim of the lake on the north side.

To the south, west and east of the lake is an area of mixed informal planting of deciduous and coniferous trees and shrubs, some of which are mature. Along the west side of the lake is a bank of rhododendrons. At the south end of the garden is a smaller linear pond. Along the west boundary is a row of mature pines, inside which is a linear depression marking the position of a perimeter path. On the central axis of the south front is a tall composite sundial which originally stood in the centre of the bowling green at nearby Leeswood (86591), and erected here by the present owner.
Earthwork features on NE of kitchen garden may indicate an early enclosure.

House and garden lie within a small park (700278).

Sources:
Cadw 1995: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Clwyd, 248-50 (ref: PGW(C)46).
RCAHMW air photos: 94-CS 1553-5; 945166/68-9.

RCAHMW, 21 June 2022

Site Record

Tower Garden, Mold