The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust

Photograph of the Gardens at Clytha Park, Monmouthshire, a private Grade II listed garden. Reproduced by kind permission of Caroline Palmer.

The WHGT was founded in 1989, at a time when very little public attention was directed at our heritage of historic gardens, this indeed was just three years after the publication of the Oxford Companion to Gardens, by Patrick Goode which rather rashly asserted that there were hardly any historic gardens of note across the border! That misapprehension has certainly been substantially challenged since then.

Three survey initiatives followed in the succeeding years: the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens published six volumes, describing a total of 367 gardens, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales developed a gardens database, and the ten county branches of the WHGT developed, in consultation with RCAHMW their own regional databases. Some of the material collected has also been deposited with the RCAHMW and in some counties a quantity of core data about gardens has been lodged with the county Sites and Monuments Record. The SMR makes the information readily available to planning departments and may therefore contribute to the safeguarding of sites threatened by development. At the present time, the survey material created by WHGT recorders is both dispersed and incomplete, very understandably in view of the huge size of the undertaking.

Unlike the Cadw register, which confined itself to gardens deemed of national importance, and allocated them to a classification of Grade I, II* and II similar in convention to that for listed buildings, the County Recorders began their task from the other end of the range. Most began by examining old ordnance survey maps, tithe maps, and historic tours and descriptions to identify every site where a garden of at least modest significance can be shown to have existed. Some would prove to be entirely lost, ploughed out or built over, others were still apparent to the trained eye through surviving trees or built structures but largely lost to general recognition. In my own county, Ceredigion, (or Cardiganshire as it used to be known), which is generally held to be the most impoverished of Welsh counties, some 244 sites were recognized through this first stage research, in wealthier areas like Gwynedd more than 500 were identified. Not surprisingly, few counties have yet completed the task of visiting every site located by the archive research, though probably most of the more conspicuous gardens have been visited at least once and branch recorders hold a large amount of information not welded into a consistent format.

In addition to recording gardens, the WHGT also initiated a number of ambitious projects which soon budded off as separate Trusts. Almost everyone is familiar with the TV series on the restoration of Aberglasney – ‘A Garden Lost in Time’, and many have now visited its exquisite restoration and new ornamental gardens. Another Trust secured the National Botanic Garden of Wales on the site of Middleton Hall, where William Paxton’s chain of lakes and cascades, and the derelict but distinctive double walled garden could be integrated into the new developments. More historically conservative in its approach was the Hafod Trust, whose task was to form co-operative alliances with the Forestry Commission and reclaim from the ravages of commercial forestry the Grade I listed picturesque landscape laid out in the late 18th century by aesthete, Thomas Johnes of Hafod. Another initiative, The Gateway Project, facilitated garden visits for disadvantaged groups and minorities who might otherwise not be aware of their garden heritage. This too budded off its parent as The Gateway Trust and has now expanded its geographic range over the border into England.

The core objectives of the WHGT must be the recording, conserving and restoration of historic gardens, and the work continues. A number of very high profile planning battles have ensued where the setting of nationally important sites including Powis Castle, Ruperra Castle, and the Vaynol near Bangor have been under threat. Local branch conservation officers are also vigilant in scanning planning applications and ensuring that the planners are not left unaware of the importance of the lesser sites not listed on the Cadw Register.

The WHGT also exists to support and encourage owners of historic gardens, and arranges a programme of national and local visits and study days, often at choice locations not normally accessible to the public.

Caroline Palmer
Volunteer Coordinator, Parks & Gardens UK