CPAT Report No 1258
Parks
SCHEDULING ENHANCEMENT PROGRAMME
THE CLWYD-POWYS ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST
CPAT Report No 1258
Parks
Scheduling Enhancement Programme
R J Silvester, and R Hankinson
March 2014
Report for Cadw
The Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust
41 Broad Street, Welshpool, Powys, SY21 7RR
tel (01938) 553670, fax (01938) 552179
© CPAT 2014
CPAT Report no. 1258
Parks Scheduling Enhancement Programme, 2014
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 3
Park Numbers and Distribution ................................................................................................. 6
Types of Parks ........................................................................................................................... 7
The Physical Elements of Parks and their Protection................................................................ 9
Bachymbyd Park, Llanynys (Denbs)....................................................................................... 12
Bathafarn Park, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd (Denbs) ................................................................ 13
Bellfountain Park, Llangenny nr Crickhowell (Brecs) ............................................................ 14
Berthddu Park, Halkin (Flints) ................................................................................................ 15
Bettisfield Park, Bettisfield (Flints)......................................................................................... 17
Black Park, Chirk (Denbs) ...................................................................................................... 18
Bodelwyddan (Flints) .............................................................................................................. 20
Bryngwyn, Meifod (Monts)..................................................................................................... 22
Castell Dinas (Bwlchyddinas), nr Talgarth (Brecs)................................................................. 23
Cefnllys (Rads)........................................................................................................................ 24
Chirk Castle, Chirk (Denbs) .................................................................................................... 25
Clocaenog Park (Denbs).......................................................................................................... 27
Clyro Park, Clyro (Rads)......................................................................................................... 29
Cwmaron, Llanbister (Rads) ................................................................................................. 30
Cwmhir Abbey Great Park and Little Park (Rads).................................................................. 31
Denbigh, Little Park (Denbs) .................................................................................................. 33
Dininlle Park, Ruabon (Flints) ................................................................................................ 34
Emral Hall, Worthenbury (Flints)) .......................................................................................... 35
Eyton Park, Erbistock (Denbs) ................................................................................................ 37
Glan Aled, Llanefydd (Denbs) ................................................................................................ 38
Glaniwrch, Llanrhaiadr ym Mochnant (Denbs) ...................................................................... 39
Glyndyfyrdwy Park (Denbs) ................................................................................................... 40
Glyn Park, Abenbury (Wrexham) (Denbs) aka Cefn Park ..................................................... 41
Gregynog, Tregynon (Monts).................................................................................................. 43
Gwysaney, nr Mold (Flints) .................................................................................................... 44
Hanmer Park, Hanmer (Flints) ................................................................................................ 46
Hawarden Castle, Big Park, Hawarden (Flints) ...................................................................... 47
Hawarden Castle, Little Park, Hawarden (Flints).................................................................... 48
Henoyd (Henuid) Park, Trallong (Brecs) ............................................................................... 49
Holt Castle Park (Denbs)......................................................................................................... 50
Holt(s) Park (Denbs) .............................................................................................................. 51
Iscoed (Iscoyd) Park, Bronington (Flints) ............................................................................... 53
Kerry (Monts).......................................................................................................................... 55
Kilford Park, Llanfarchell nr Denbigh (Denbs)....................................................................... 56
Kinmel Park, St George (Denbs)............................................................................................. 57
Little Park, Chirk ?? ............................................................................................................... 58
Llangattock Park, Llangattock (Brecs).................................................................................... 59
Llannerch Park, nr St Asaph (Denbs)...................................................................................... 61
Llewenni, Denbigh (Denbs) .................................................................................................... 62
Llysun Park, Llanerfyl (Monts)............................................................................................... 64
Lymore Park, Montgomery (Monts) ....................................................................................... 66
Maes-Mynan, Bodfari (Flints)................................................................................................. 67
Mathrafal, Meifod (Monts)...................................................................................................... 69
Molewick Park (Denbs)........................................................................................................... 70
Mostyn Hall, Mostyn (Flints) .................................................................................................. 71
Nerquis Hall, Nerquis (Flints) ................................................................................................. 72
Newhall, Chirk (Denbs) .......................................................................................................... 73
New Radnor (Rads) ................................................................................................................ 74
Old Gwernyfed (Brecs) ........................................................................................................... 75
Old Park (Flints)..................................................................................................................... 76
Park, Caersws (Monts) ............................................................................................................ 77
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The Parks, Penley (Flints) ....................................................................................................... 78
Pool Park, Efenechtyd (Denbs) ............................................................................................. 79
Porthamel, nr Talgarth (Brecs) ................................................................................................ 80
Powis Castle Park .................................................................................................................... 82
Ruthin Castle Park, Ruthin (Denbs) ........................................................................................ 84
Segrwyd Park, Denbigh (Denbs)........................................................................................... 85
Snodiock (Garthsnodiock) Park, nr Denbigh (Denbs)............................................................. 86
Stanage (Rads)........................................................................................................................ 88
Strata Marcella, nr Welshpool (Monts) ................................................................................... 90
Trebarried, Llandefalle (Brecs) ............................................................................................... 91
Trevalyn Hall, Rossett (Denbs) ............................................................................................... 92
Tyfaenor (now Dyfaenor), Abbeycwmhir (Rads) ................................................................... 94
Vaynor Park, Berriew (Monts) ................................................................................................ 95
Wynnstay, Ruabon (Flints)...................................................................................................... 97
Other Parks with insufficient information to locate them ....................................................... 98
References ............................................................................................................................... 99
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Introduction
Deer parks were in the 1970s largely the province of a single academic, Leonard Cantor;
based in Loughborough, his purview did not extend much beyond England, as revealed by
articles in 1982 and 1987 and the gazetteer of medieval parks that he produced in 1983. His
pioneering work is relevant, nevertheless, for demonstrating the prevalence of parks in the
Middle Ages, with some nineteen hundred documented examples listed for England alone. In
the later 1980s it was Oliver Rackham who took the study further. Base on detailed work in
eight counties of England he postulated that there could have been as many as 3,200 parks in
existence around 1300 (Rackham 1986, 123; 1990, 151), a figure again that was applicable
solely to England. However, Rackham did attempt to adapt his study to Wales as well. Using
as his sources William Rees’ 1932 map of Wales and the borderland (see below) and William
Linnard’s publication on Welsh woods and forests (1982), he compiled a distribution map for
the United Kingdom mainland as a whole (1986, fig 6.1). Too small to allow precise locations
to be identified, the map suggests five parks in Denbighshire, one in Flintshire, one in
Montgomeryshire, six in Radnorshire and four in Breconshire. Elsewhere he posited around
fifty medieval parks in the whole of Wales, the majority near the English border and with
greater numbers in Monmouthshire and lowland Glamorgan than further north in the country
(1986, 125).
Rackham’s reference to Linnard’s publication was in a sense premature. The 1982 edition of
Linnard’s work touched on deer parks only in passing, but the revised version in 2000
rectified the situation with a chapter on the subject, which as far as we are aware is virtually
the only published study of the subject in Wales. Linnard identified 21 deer parks on Rees’
map and then provided details of two Glamorgan deer parks – Senghennydd and Parc le Broes
– courtesy of the RCAHMW Inventory (Linnard 2000, 52; RCAHMW 1982, 381-2).
In recent years there has been a dramatic growth in interest in parks, both deer parks and
landscaped parks. with several studies at a county level appearing, including one for the
border county of Shropshire (Neave and Turnbull 1992; Cantor and Squires 1997; Stamper
1996) and a paper from the landscape archaeologist Peter Herring on Cornwall (2003).
Broader themes have been addressed in widely heralded books by Liddiard and Mileson
(2009) and most recently Fletcher (2011) revealing changing perceptions of how parks
functioned and offering more in-depth studies. Hunting too has been put under the
microscope (Almond 2011). One thing that these works have in common (other than their
obvious subject matter) is the lack of any focus on Wales. Fletcher for instance mentions just
one Welsh park – Llantrithyd in Glamorgan – and this only because it was the subject of a
short piece by William Linnard in the Journal of the British Deer Society in 1988. The
honourable exception to this blank canvas is André Berry’s work on the parks in the lordship
of Dyffryn Clwyd in Denbighshire; a preliminary paper was published in 1994, but the
demise of Clwyd as a local authority and the disbandment of the Clwyd Archaeology Service
regrettably brought his research to a premature close. We should also mention the Parks and
Gardens Register compiled over several years by Cadw, in conjunction with ICOMOS, which
whilst focussed on the material remains of parkland landscapes in evidence today, does touch
on deer parks on occasions (Cadw 1995, 1998, 1999).
Identifying parks in east Wales: the Sources
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the identification of deer parks in east Wales has
been something of a voyage of discovery. In the absence of any substantive work on the topic,
a wider range of approaches has been necessary in the collation of material than has been
usual in the medieval and early post-medieval SEPs that have been completed to date. In this
section we have outlined those sources of data that have been accessed without offered much
detail: this should be forthcoming from the gazetteer.
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HER
The preliminary assessment for this study involved the extraction from the HER of all sites
and features classed as (or associated with), a total of 152 records being identified through
this process. The records were then individually examined and classified to differentiate
medieval and post-medieval deer parks from those parks that developed in conjunction with
gentry houses (which normally seem to go under the heading of landscaped parks in the
specialist literature), and from any other types such as the ill-defined woodland parks. A large
proportion (67 or 44%) of the records were either definite or likely landscaped parks and a
similarly large number were references which formed a single component of a more
comprehensive park record also given a number, and therefore effectively a duplicate.
Some 23 records appeared to represent specific evidence of a medieval or post-medieval deer
park and additionally there were 9 possible examples. Two further sites could best be
described as mixed gentry/deer parks, where they had been used for deer but also landscaped
for their aesthetic appearance. Seven records that might relate to deer parks were of unknown
origin and uncertain relevance and value, most of these being place-names.
Coflein
The online records of RCAHMW were accessed and searched for the term ‘park’, using the
old county designation to split the results into geographic areas. Cross-checked against the
HER, only two new deer park records were encountered, for Parc Eyton and for Wynnstay,
both in that part of the old county of Denbighshire which is now in Wrexham County
Borough.
The Cadw Parks and Gardens Register
The Cadw Parks and Gardens Register referenced seven deer parks in Powys (1999), few of
which could unreservedly be attributed a medieval origin. Similarly in the north-east Wales
volumes (1995 and 1998) seven deer parks were listed, with another five descriptions that
might indicate such a park. This small number results, so it appears, from a sparsity of source
material. The Register, it should be said, was undoubtedly a useful and valuable source of
information, but not as comprehensive as we had anticipated.
Historic Maps
Christopher Saxton’s county maps published in 1579, but surveyed and engraved in preceding
years were copied by John Speed for his Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain published in
1611. Both sets of maps show precisely the same number of paled parks: two in Brecknock,
six in Denbighshire, two in Flintshire, none interestingly in Montgomeryshire and just one in
Radnorshire, a total of eleven. Assuming, as we must, that these depictions represent deer
parks, the lack of coincidence with the Parks and Gardens Register is surprising: only
Hawarden (Flints) and Stanage (Rads) seem to put in an appearance in both sources.
Later county mapping drew on Saxton’s (or Speed’s) maps unscrupulously, the cartographers
not usually acknowledging the source and not always adding any substantive new information
to what had been first mapped in the second half of the 16th century. The Royal English Atlas
published by Emanuel Bowen and Thomas Kitchin contains maps engraved in c.1762-3 and
from the perspective of the present study this does contain new parks. But by this date it is not
possible to determine whether the parks, though shown as paled enclosures, were simply
landscape parks. Most of those shown by Saxton no longer figure in Bowen and Kitchen,
though Newhall, Chirk is there (even if the position occupied by Chirk Castle park on the
earlier maps), as are Holt (Denbs) and Hawarden Castle. Additions include Kinmel (Denbs),
Llysun (Monts), Bettisfield (Flints), Llanerch (Denbs), Mostyn (Flints) and Wynnstay
(Denbs).
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Finally there is William Rees’s map of south Wales and the Border in the 14th century, not an
original map but one composited from many written sources by the great historian in the
1920s and published by the Ordnance Survey in 1932. The small set of guidance notes to the
map which he produced to accompany the map does not mention parks, but they do feature on
the map, spelt out as park, occasionally with a qualifier, in green. Strangely there is virtually
no mention of parks in his published volume, South Wales and the March 1284-1415 (1924),
the precursor of his map, though forests did figure in the book. From Rees’ map, the
following have been picked out: Cefnllys (Rads); New Radnor (Rads) to both east and west of
the castle; Little Park and Great Park at Cwmhir, now Abbeycwmhir (Rads), Bwlchyddinas
(Brecs) and the one west of Trallong which Speed had as Henuid Park.
Estate maps form a rewarding source of information on parks, not least because it was
consistently the larger landowners having their lands mapped, who were more likely still to
have had parks, or had predecessors who had once had a park on the estate. But there is no
comprehensive descriptive guide to manuscript maps for any of the counties covered in this
study. The counties that make up the former county of Clwyd have a descriptive paper
catalogue of estate maps but there is no subject index to their contents. Where estate maps
depicting parks are cited in the gazetteer – e.g. Chirk, Llysun and Vaynor – it as a result of
the writers’ encountering them by chance during other assessments.
Modern Secondary Sources
The location of parks in modern writings is largely down to happenstance. Thus for instance
in her article on Crickhowell Manor in 1587, Pamela Redwood (1996/7, 18) reveals that the
manorial survey records three parks: Killelan (or Llangattock) Park, already in the HER,
Bellfountain Park, Llangenny which was known to us through earlier work on the 1587
survey (Silvester 2001, 25), but was not registered in the HER and Philip Montai(g)ne Park in
Llanbedr which no one has been able to locate, and is thus no more than a name, though it
was described as being no more than five or ten acres of woodland.
As noted above only one modern study has addressed the locations of deer parks in the
region, that by André Berry on Dyffryn Clwyd (1994). He makes the point that in the
southern lordship in the vale there were five parks centred on Ruthin, three of which could be
pinpointed if not defined. The remaining two, one variously referred to Brenk, Brengif and
Bryn Kyffo, the other the town park of Ruthin which lay in Caervallen within the parish of
Llanrhudd, were not described. Derrick Pratt’s study of Chirkland (1990) added the otherwise
unknown Little Park which was disparked at the end of the Middle Ages to the better
documented Black Park and Chirk Castle Park, but made no attempt to position these in the
landscape of Chirkland.
Modern Mapping
W G Hoskins was the first, at least in modern popular conception, to emphasise the value of
the close study of the Ordnance Survey map in reading past landscapes. Nowhere, one can
argue, is this better shown than in seeking ‘lost’ parks. Because of their potential for
generating a distinctive shape in the landscape, parks can show up on larger scale maps, and
this is shown to good effect in the gazetteer with the probable parks at Glaniwrch
(Llanrhaiadr) and Kerry emerging from the map during previous pieces of work, and Eyton,
Foxhall and others materialising during the current programme. There is of course the everpresent danger of ‘seeing’ suggestive shapes where nothing actually exists so corroborative
evidence – place- and field-names, contemporary high status sites etc – is always necessary.
Place-names
Some years ago one of the writers trawled through the late 19th-century large-scale Ordnance
Survey maps for the region collecting potentially interesting place-names, one of which was
the term ‘park’. These have been correlated with other evidence, as in the case of
Glyndyfyrdwy Park, to identify a few further putative parks.
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However, it should be noted that particularly in south-west England but sporadically
elsewhere the term ‘park’ can simply indicate an enclosure, derived from Old English pearroc
meaning an enclosed piece of land (Field 1993, 25). Caution then is necessary where field
names alone are used.
Park Numbers and Distribution
Collating data from these various sources produces a very different picture from what was
known previously (see Table 1 where Oliver Rackham’s 1986 figures have been added for
comparison). The overall picture is of necessity a preliminary one. Not every park will have
been ‘captured’ in the dataset as we can tell from the handful that are named in documentary
sources but cannot be located in the landscape through a lack of information. Molewick Park
in Denbighshire is the best example, a genuine medieval deer park attached to the lordship of
Denbigh which despite our efforts, we have so for been unable to pinpoint, even though it was
known to commentators at the end of the 17th century. This has been included in the gazetteer,
for further research should locate it, but others at present are simply names where there is less
optimism about uncovering its location. Other medieval parks must be suspected but as yet no
evidence for their existence has been encountered. Where for instance were the deer parks for
the lordships based on Brecon, Crickhowell (Llangattock, perhaps?) and Hay?
Then there are those where the evidence is not as firm as we might like, the so-called
‘possible’ parks of Table 1, where more detailed analysis, particularly of records such as
Inquisitions Post Mortem¸ should help to authenticate them.
What we should perhaps stress here is that for a subject that has been little researched in the
region under study, this SEP assessment has enabled a much fuller picture to be presented
than was previously possible.
The distribution too is significant with a remarkably even spread across the southern counties
that now make up Powys, but many more in the north-east where longstanding lordships and
gentry estates and based on greater wealth will have facilitated the creation of these symbols
of status.
Table 1: Medieval and post-medieval parks in the historic counties of east Wales
Historic County
Certain
Probable
Possible
Total
Breconshire
Denbighshire
Flintshire
Merionethshire
Montgomeryshire
Radnorshire
Total
4
16
9
1
3
4
37
2
2
4
0
3
2
13
1
4
1
0
1
1
8
7
22
14
1
7
7
58
6
Rackham
1986
4
5
1
0
1
6
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Types of Parks
A detailed study of the different types of deer parks lies outside the scope of this report, and
indeed at this preliminary stage in assessing these landscape features might be considered to
be premature. Nevertheless, a few initial observations are in order, if only as an indicator of
what could be achieved in the future.
Lordship Parks
On the incomplete evidence available to us, the caput of every established lordship should
have had at least one deer park and possibly more, and, assuming continuity these should be
amongst the earliest of the parks that can be identified in the region. Hawarden, Denbigh,
Ruthin, Holt, Chirk, Montgomery and Cefnllys all follow this norm. And as pointed out above
those places such as Brecon which were centres of lordship yet have no obvious deer park do
stand out. Thus the inclusion in the gazetteer of the putative park at New Radnor was solely a
result of an assumption that there ought to be park there, then confirmed by the discovery of a
series of relevant field-names, coupled with the presence of the label ‘Park Lane’ attached to
what is probably the oldest identifiable trackway in the district.
The appearance of two parks beside a major caput is perhaps a recurring feature. It is revealed
in the Big and Little Parks at Hawarden, and perhaps implicit in the Little Park at Denbigh
and the group of parks at Chirk. If important lordships did indulge in multiple parks below the
walls of their castles, we might expect to find parallel evidence from the better documented
examples in England.
Castle Parks
There are at least two places – Glaniwrch and Kerry - where mottes of unexceptional size and
importance could be associated with a park, if the continuous curvilinear boundaries on early
large-scale Ordnance Survey maps are a reliable guide. Neither can be wholly authenticated,
field-names are of no significance, and in the case of Glaniwrch there is no ground evidence
(Kerry may be a little different). Only the depictions on the map raise the question. Clyro
Castle is slightly different in as much as there is Court of Augmentations record that
indirectly from a field name reveals a park in the vicinity of the motte. The case of Glan Aled
in what was Denbighshire is much speculative; here the outline offered on the cartography
could be solely a result of the topography, and the presence of a farm called Llys offers a
tempting association, but one that needs fuller justification, not least because there is very
little evidence that we know of to link Welsh llysoedd and enclosed parks – in other words as
an Anglo-Norman introduction, the presence of a Welsh park could only be through
emulation.
Monastic Parks
As James Bond puts it (2004, 171-2): hunting was frowned upon by the ecclesiastical
authorities, and repeated attempts were made to curb it, but the heads of the greater monastic
houses, operating as feudal lords with responsibilities for entertaining important visitors,
could, in fact, hardly avoid some involvement in [hunting] this most popular of all
aristocratic pastimes.
He notes too that in south-west England nearly nine per cent of known medieval parks were
in monastic ownership. Thus it should come as no surprise that there is evidence of deer parks
at two of the main Cistercian houses in Powys, Cwmhir and Strata Marcella. It begs the
question as to whether Basingwerk and even perhaps Valle Crucis were similarly endowed.
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Manorial Parks
The emergence of manorial parks late in the medieval era, constructed by those who had the
resources available, is not well-evidenced yet feasible, for as Cantor pointed out many years
ago (1982, 52) parks may well have gone into decline in the wake of the Black Death with
their use falling off, yet others could have been established as more land became available.
Pratt identified The Parks at Penley as one possible manorial park which he thought could
have fallen out of use by the last quarter of the 15th century. There are likely to be others, but
it is usually the absence of detailed research that creates a stumbling block. It is no
coincidence that most of the parks where an earlier date has been established are in
Denbighshire and reflect the research of A N Palmer and more recently Derrick Pratt.
Tudor Parks
The problem with parks that have been allotted to the Tudor era is that the first documented
date could be long after the establishment of the park, in others a Tudor reference may well be
to a medieval park, for it is rare for the date of a park creation to be recorded. Clearest in this
context is Hawarden Castle Big Park whose earliest date of 1577 is not likely to be an
accurate pointer to a deer park which must have been established in the Middle Ages when
the castle had a purposeful function. Nevertheless it seems reasonably clear that some new
parks were created in the Tudor era. Bodidris near Llandegla in Denbighshire is one such,
though it has to be said that the entire history of this park is hazy, Llysun in Montgomeryshire
could be another, while received wisdom firmly plants Trevalyn Hall at Rossett in a Tudor
timeframe.
17th-century and Later Parks
It is quite clear that despite the traditional view that deer parks were primarily medieval
landscape creations, some came into existence at a much later date. And while these were
stated to be specifically for deer, it is less apparent as to whether they were an enclosed
variant of the landscaped park of the 18th century. A classic case is Emral Hall at
Worthenbury (Flints) where an elliptical enclosure is still marked on modern maps as a deer
park. Field by several different individuals including one of the writers has failed to identify
any form of park bank or other earthwork, yet the line of the park couldn’t be clearer.
However, an estate map specifically dated to 1764 shows this area as a conventional field
system, while revealing that other fields away to the south-east had park affixes. The simplest
explanation is that the original deer park at Emral, home to the Puleston family since the late
13th century was disparked at an unknown date, and that sometime probably in the late 18th
century the decision was made to create a new park. Likewise the somewhat obscure park on
Halkin Mountain which is termed Berthddu Park on the basis of a single map annotation and
may have been linked – a tenuous one at best – with the lost Halkin Hall seems to have been
established in the second half of the 18th century.
Gwysaney is a century earlier but the documentation is better for the owner’s wife in 1664
recorded that the park wall had been completed and deer put in the park, while Sir John
Carter’s new park at Kinmel ought to date between 1647 and 1676 for it was mentioned in
correspondence by Wynne of Gwydir who gave him a herd of deer.
In other instances whilst the presence of a medieval park might be suspected or the
chronology of an estate allows it, we should not be too confident that what we see in plan or
on the ground is necessarily a medieval survival or indeed a medieval creation. Two examples
from Montgomeryshire should suffice. The park at Llysun is well-defined through its
appearance on an earlier 18th-century map that should the pale in its entirety. But can we
assume that this is a medieval park. The history of Llysun is mysterious and intriguing, and
certainly seems to go back far enough to merit a medieval park. But it is, as far as can be
established, a Welsh lordship centre rather than and Anglo-Norman/English one and the
evidence to date points to parks being focussed on those areas were English influence was
stronger. Perhaps then the acquisition of the Llysun estate by the Herberts of Powis Castle
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after the Reformation might offer a better context for the mergence of a park there. Vaynor
offers a parallel and here we know there are remains of a pale bank as well as evidence for the
pale being in place when the grounds of the hall were mapped in 1760s. The deer park is,
though, remarkably rectangular compared with many authentic medieval parks, as though it
was levered into an existing landscape (cf Kinmel Park in Denbighshire) and one is left to
wonder whether it is not the late medieval hunting park of Edward ap Hywel, but one that was
perhaps created by the Devereux family in the 17th century.
The Physical Elements of Parks and their Protection
What emerges very strongly from an assessment of the records in the HER is how very little
field observation has been undertaken on deer parks, other than perhaps during the
compilation of the Parks and Gardens Register in the later 1990s. This omission is of course
not ubiquitous. We can mention André Berry’s earlier fieldwork on the parks of the Dyffryn
Clwyd lordship, an interim statement on which was published in the local historical society
transactions in 1994, and be grateful that his observations were made available in that way,
whilst regretting that the demise of Clwyd meant that his valuable work was never completed.
CPAT itself undertook the examination of the Cwmhir Abbey deer park, producing an interim
statement in the late 1990s, and the writer recognised part of the Vaynor Park pale whilst
doing fieldwork there in 2003. And there is little sense of focused first-hand field observation
in the Register; there can be little doubt that it was the integral elements of the landscape park
that took priority. In sum, if the only parks accepted into the equation are those already
recorded in the HER, there has been relatively little field validation of the evidence in the last
thirty years, and eastern Wales has fallen well behind quite a few better-researched English
counties.
The present generation of SEP projects is not geared to producing considerable amounts of
new field data, but is focussed more on assessing and where necessary validating what is
already known. Berry’s past work, too, hints at, but does not quantify, the longer time scales
necessary for identifying and recording the field evidence for deer parks, time which is not
available in an SEP. For this reason field visits have been restricted to only a couple of days’
of work, enough to get only a flavour of the resource and identify the potential.
There is a further issue – is scheduling the most appropriate mechanism for protecting a deer
park? As far as we can establish only one deer park in Wales has a stretch of its enclosure
bank scheduled at present: Senghennydd at Eglwysilan in Glamorgan (RCAHMW 1976, 6)
but scheduled not because it is a deer park boundary but because it was previously interpreted
and described (in the official schedule) as a cross-ridge dyke despite the strictures of the
Royal Commission. It is a little different when it comes to the smaller-scale features within
parks such as lodges. At Cwmhir Abbey in Radnorshire the Great Park Shed is scheduled but
the park boundary is not protected in any way, at Llangattock Park (Brecs) the small moated
site known as Hen Castell is almost certainly the keeper’s lodge, and there is also an
earthwork in Chepstow Park which was probably related to the use of the park for hunting (W
Davies: pers. comm.). This is hardly a solid foundation on which to base scheduling
recommendations. However, it should be pointed out that English Heritage do have a policy
of scheduling park pales and that the term is an acceptable one in their scheduling procedures.
Nearly thirty park pales are thus covered in England, which if followed on a pro rata
geographical area basis would mean that around five Welsh examples would be similarly
protected, though English Heritage are adopting an increasingly discriminate approach to
scheduling examples because of the numbers involved (Paul Stamper: pers. comm.; English
Heritage 2012.). It might be argued that Wales with many fewer examples would generate
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fewer potentially schedulable park boundaries but against this is the level of ‘rarity’, one of
the statutory scheduling criteria.
Some deer parks do receive a degree of protection through their inclusion in the Parks and
Gardens Register, and perhaps as importantly a level of (or perhaps the potential for)
recognition which could assist in ensuring the survival of salient features. Often this is
because the deer park is incorporate within the wider landscape park that is the focus of the
Register. A rapid scan of the list below suggests that none of them is acknowledged on the
Register as an unaltered deer park, though some such as Iscoyd may be there because the deer
park was coterminous with the landscape park.
The deer parks lying within registered parks in east Wales are:
Chirk Castle
Gwysaney (part)
Hawarden Castle Little Park
Hawarden Castle Big Park (minor part)
Holt Parks (minor part under Horsley Hall)
Iscoyd Park
Kinmel Park
Llangattock Park
Llannerch Hall (part)
Stanage Park
Vaynor Park
Those landscape parks with deer park survivals that seem to have escaped the Register’s net
include:
Bettisfield Park
Maes-mynan’
Mathrafal
Powis Castle
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A Gazetteer of Deer Parks in east Wales
Introductory notes
The maplets that accompany the gazetteer entries use consistent annotations.
A continuous red line indicates a park boundary that has been confirmed either through
mapwork or field observation.
A line of red dots indicates the possible line of the park boundary, usually based at least partly
on speculation.
A solitary red dot signifies a park field-name as recorded in the 18th or 19th century.
An orange dot signifies a ‘hey’ name (Llewenni Park only)
An orange triangle denotes the position of a park lodge shown on an early map.
A green line indicates a ‘park lane’ (New Radnor only)
Please note the following:
No consistent scale has been adopted in the reproduction of the maps. They are designed to
provide an overall impression of the park under discussion rather than an accurate
representation that can be used for the determination of precise measurements. This would be
better achieved from the data mapping held by the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust.
All maps include modern Ordnance Survey data and are covered under the following
copyright regulations:
© Crown Copyright and database right 2009. All rights reserved. Welsh Assembly
Government. Licence number 100017916
© Hawlfraint y Goron â hawl gronfa ddata 2009. Cedwir pob hawl. Llywodraeth Cynulliad
Cymru. Rhif trwydded 100017916
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Bachymbyd Park, Llanynys (Denbs)
130090 SJ 093 611
Information on Bachymbyd is considerably sparser than for many gentry residences (see the
abbreviated entry in the Clwyd Parks and Gardens Register which runs to no more than a
single page), but it is clear that it was in existence late in the 15th century when it was owned
by the Salusbury Family, and because of this a deer park is at least a possibility.
A park was mentioned in written records of 1619, though it is not clear whether this was just
the ground around the gentry house. There is as yet no independent evidence for a deer park,
and we have not encountered any useful field names on the mid-19th century tithe
apportionment.
Although there are some suggestive alignments of field boundaries and tracks on large-scale
Ordnance Survey maps, these do not form a satisfactory basis for defining a park outline, and
no speculative boundary can be provided here.
NLW Bachymbyd No 645, 1619; Cadw 1995, 7; Tithe Survey 1840/1;
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Bathafarn Park, Llanbedr Dyffryn Clwyd (Denbs)
19498 SJ 1486 5780
Depositions regarding the boundary between Bacheirig and Bathafarn Park were given before
the commissioners of the Council of the Marches in Wales in 1592, when it was valued at
£200. No earlier references have been encountered but Jack’s work implies that it was
mentioned in the earlier court rolls.
Berry provides the following details from the 1592 inquisition. The park was ‘compassed …
about with a great high ancient ditch … called by the name of Clawdd y park’. The ditch was
‘not as other common ditches between neighbour and neighbour but a great huge mighty ditch
such a one as the lords use to erect and make up about their parks’. The bank supported a
pale, some of it still surviving in the closing years of the 16th century. There were two gates
at the east and west ends, known as y Porth issa and y Porth ucha. The former stood close to
Bwlch y Park (SJ 168 582), while the latter was close to Plas-yn-rhal (SJ 144 585). Half the
park abutted the open hills, divided from them only by the park ditch. Within the park there
were several tenements and some quillets of arable and meadow.
Berry notes that significant fragments of the park boundary remain as earthworks but does not
described them in detail, other than one section near Castell Gyrn (SJ 163 587) where the
boundary runs south-eastwards up a hill slope.
He estimates the area to be around 400 hectares with about 8.2km of potential park pale. He
suggests that up to 2.5 km could survive as a definable earthwork. He has mapped the
boundary of Bathafarn Park in as far as this is possible from the 1592 inquisition (1994, fig
3), and this has been reconfigured and is reproduced here.
NLW Bathafarn Nos 18-20 (1592); Berry 1994, 21
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Bellfountain Park, Llangenny nr Crickhowell (Brecs)
130093 SO 2322 1859
The park is mentioned in documents of 1584 and 1590 and was leased out in 1739. It is also
shown, wooded, on a map in the Badminton Manorial Survey of 1587, but neither the shape
of the park nor the supporting documentation offers any support to the view that this could
have been a deer park.
A complex of buildings, now almost entirely gone but for a few residual earthworks and
occasional stone, lay on its north-eastern boundary and, on the basis of the 1587 map,
intruded a little into the park. Nothing is known of the status or ownership of this complex (P
and M Redwood: pers. comm.)
NLW Badminton 399 (1584); Badminton Map Volume 3 (1587); NLW Tretower (Proceedings
of the court of Exchequer) B, (1590); NLW Badminton 7373 (1739); Redwood 1996/97, 18;
Silvester 2001, 25
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Berthddu Park, Halkin (Flints)
130136
SJ 2143 6960
In 1912 (OS 3rd edition) Plas y Parc did not exist, Pen-y-parc went unnamed and only the area
to the north-west was shown as Pen y Parc. In 1873 it was much the same with similar
naming and the polygonal outline shown.
The 1834 map shows the north-western boundary in place and also offers another park name
attached to a dwelling, simply Parc, in the vicinity of the present school, but seemingly gone
by 1873. John Evans in 1795 mapped Berthddu Park and his admittedly small-scale depiction
seems to show the north-west, south-west and southern sides reasonably closely.
The problem comes with an earlier map of 1737, Badeslade’s index map of the commons and
wastes in north-east Wales belonging to the Grosvenor Estate. This shows the putative area of
the park with the boundary relatively accurately depicted on the south-west south and northeast sides, but not on the north-west. What, however is more critical is that it is shown as
being enclosed, separated into 18 different fields in two tenanted holdings. Further detail
would undoubtedly be found in the separate schedule which has not been examined. Given
that Badeslade was a reasonably accurate surveyor. The alternative possibilities appear to be
that either the park had already been abandoned in 1737 and turned over to farming, or that it
was created after that date and the tenants ousted. The latter seems more likely, that it was
created by the owners of Halkin Hall, the predecessor of Halkin Castle, perhaps in the second
half of the 18th century; and this would also perhaps explain the straight boundary on the
north-west, a rationalisation of the landscape elements on this side where the existent field
boundaries were irregular in outline.
Fiona Gale’s observations of the boundary are as follows: on the north-west a high section of
wall; on the north-east a very high dry-stone wall, but rebuilt at a lower than original height;
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and at the western end of the southern side, another high section of wall. Generally the wall is
around 3m high in places. Further fieldwork would undoubtedly add in further detail.
Fiona Gale: pers. comm.; Grosvenor Estate Map EM8a 1737; Silvester forthcoming
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Bettisfield Park, Bettisfield (Flints)
102848
SJ 4530 3780
William Williams’ map of Denbighshire and Flintshire (c.1720) shows a large deer park to
the west of the house, and early Ordnance Survey maps from the late 19th century continued
to portray the ‘deer park’ here and modern maps still have the park. It was, however, not
researched and included in the Clwyd Register of Parks and Gardens (1995), so even the
background history is unknown, although it has been reported that the pale around the park
was removed in 1914.
Large-scale Ordnance Survey maps show various curvilinear boundaries, but in the absence
of any supporting evidence it would be premature to attempt the definition of the park that
was here in the early 18th century. Field names derived from the Tithe map could indicate that
the park as shown in the late 19th century had contracted from its original size, since they lay
beyond it on both the north-east and south-west sides.
CPAT Historic Landscape Characterisation; Hanmer Tithe map and apportionment 1839 &
1840; Williams c.1720
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Black Park, Chirk (Denbs)
130112
SJ 2979 3946
Black Park has retained its name on modern Ordnance Survey maps, even though the name
appears now to refer to a modern housing estate immediately to the south of the steep-sided
Dee Valley and north of where the A5 departs the A483. It was one of three acknowledged
parks in the lordship of Chirk and within reasonable distance of the castle.
Pratt (1990, 26) cites a reference of 1350 to a trespass in the park (and the fine that was
levied). There is a reference to the occupier of the park of Brynkinallte or Blacke Parke in the
ministers’ accounts from 1575-8. And the park is displayed on an estate map of 1776, its pale
still intact. Also known as Parc Bryncunallt, and the largest of the three Chirkland parks, Pratt
calculates it to have contained 211 acres.
The estate map of 1776 is then the best guide to the park, but it must be suspected that what is
shown represents only a portion of the original park. The pale perimeter is so angular and
irregular that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that parts had already been disparked by
the last quarter of the 18th century, a contention strengthened by William Williams’ no doubt
schematic depiction of a curvilinear enclosure in c.1720.
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A colliery was established here probably in the 1830s and in the Victorian period this was run
as the Black Park Colliery Co. Ltd. It closed in 1949, but in the later 1980s the site was
worked as an opencast mine by British Coal, closing in 1988 after which the site was restored.
Boydell 1776 (RM C86); NLW Chirk V, No 13666 (1575-8); Pratt 1990, Saxton 1579;
Silvester 2010; Speed 1611: 26; Williams c.1720
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Bodelwyddan (Flints)
129907
SJ 0015 7468
Bodelwyddan Park is at present something of an enigma. The earliest large-scale Ordnance
Survey from 1872 displays parkland to the north-east and south-east of the castle with the
phrase ‘deer park’ printed across the more southerly area. According to the report in The
Parks and Gardens Register the park at Bodelwyddan originated in the 18th century and took
on its present form in the 19th century, with a massive boundary wall and lodges being
constructed in the 1820s and 1830s. Not only it is not clear whether the whole park, as
depicted in 1872, was a deer park, but also its period of origin is potentially rather late, and it
thus seems that it falls outside the remit of this particular study.
Cadw 1999
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Bodidris, Llandegla (Denbs)
130130 SJ 2084 5369
Depicted as a large enclosure with a pale lying immediately to the east of the house on
William Williams’ map of c.1720, the park at Bodidris is otherwise unknown and had totally
disappeared by the end of the 19th century. The house itself goes back to the Elizabethan era
but the park receives no mention in any of the standard texts. Nor does Bodidris feature in the
Clwyd Parks and Gardens Register.
With such meagre evidence it is not possible to offer even a hypothetical outline for the park.
Williams c.1720
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Bryngwyn, Meifod (Monts)
78825 SJ 177 182
The author of the Powys Parks and Gardens Register maintains there was a gentry house at
Bryngwyn in the 16th century, uninhabited and decaying by the mid-1500s, and set within a
small park. Nothing further is known of this feature and no further references to it have been
encountered.
Cadw 1999, 31
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Castell Dinas (Bwlchyddinas), nr Talgarth (Brecs)
130125
SO 179 298
According to John Leland in the 1530s, ‘therby was sumtime iii parkes, and a forest. The
parkes be down, but yet good plenty is ther of red deere’. The chances of locating any of
Leland’s three parks appears remote. William Rees on his map of South Wales in the 14th
century marked one park immediately below and south of the castle, but a useful map of the
lordship of Dinas from 1759 depicts the forest whilst making no mention of the parks. In
1550 land in Talgarth and Llangorse in Dynas included 100 acres called Newparke and 60
acres of heath ground called parkclenehyre (= Parc Glyn Hir), but there is nothing to tie these
in specifically to the area immediately around the castle, and it might be wondered if Leland
was in fact referring to the wider lordship of Blaenllynfi rather than to the sub-caput of
Castell Dinas? Either way, this currently seems insoluble.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; Silvester 2010b, plate 18; Toulin Smith iii, 108
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Cefnllys (Rads)
130122
SO 0892 6245
Included on William Rees’ historical map produced in 1932, the park at Cefnllys lay to the
north-west and below the ridge on which the successive castles were set. There are no
significant place-names shown on the large-scale Ordnance Survey maps, but Tony Brown in
1972 identified a field called ‘The Parks’ and nearby the now gone Park Barn which was in a
field called Caerpark, based on local information and a schedule of Radnorshire place-names
(1932). Additionally, an Inquisition Post Mortem for Roger Mortimer who died in 1360
referred to the park. Later in the 14th century the fee of the keeper of the park was given as 6s
8d.
It is not possible to define an outline for the park but a pair of ‘park’ field names give a broad
clue to the location and are depicted on the accompanying illustration.
Brown 1972, 16 ; Cefnllys tithe survey 1839/40
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Chirk Castle, Chirk (Denbs)
66799 SJ 2703 3764
Chirk Castle was built by the Mortimer family in the 13th century, and it is generally believed
that a small deer park was laid out in the vicinity of the castle in the same century. An early
reference of 1329 to a deer park is complemented by another of 1391-2 referring to a park
pale of timber which enclosed 100 acres of woodland. It is recorded that this woodland was
later cut down on more than one occasion. In c. 1563 a survey for the Earl of Leicester
claimed that the park’s dimensions were half a mile by a quarter of a mile, which could easily
be in keeping with the medieval acreage. But in 1675 the park was extended by Sir Thomas
Myddelton to the south and east to hold 500 deer and this included the construction of a new
park wall (NLW: Chirk 2, 58). The park pale was mentioned in a dispute referred to in a
letter of 1754. Landscaping in the 1760s and 1770s is thought to have removed much of the
original park layout, but it is still possible to discern most of its outline on Boydell’s estate
map of 1776 which shows a pale surviving on the southern side of the castle above the river,
and a continuous line around a large undifferentiated area of ‘parkland’ and wood pasture.
Deer still inhabited the parkland into the middle of the 19th century.
Late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps name the deer park to the south-east of the castle. It
is this which has been numbered as 66799 in the HER and misleadingly classed as
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‘medieval’. The HER has too a record of a deer barn (70672), classed as post-medieval, with
walling surviving and lying beside Deershed Wood. At the south-eastern end of the Deer Park
is a neatly built stone wall around 2m high, undoubtedly a relatively recent feature. All this
surviving evidence is likely to relate to the post-1675 extension to the deer park. No physical
traces of the medieval/Tudor deer park are known to have survived.
Pratt estimates its size to have been 240 acres (at odds with his comment that Black Park was
the largest) and thus half the size of the present park.
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire show two
enclosures defined by pales at Chirk, one to the north-west of the castle and linked to the
name Newhall, the other to the north-east of Chirk castle. The degree to which these are
schematic representations is not known, but there is some reason to assume a misplacement
on the map, that to the north-east where Newhall might have been anticipated being Black
Park (q.v.). Complicating this picture is William Williams’ map of c.1720 which shows no
less than four parks, one of them appended to Newhall on its eastern side. While it is possible
that Williams used Saxton as a source, leading to inadvertent duplications, a separate park at
Newhall is not out of the question, disguised or lost in the subsequent landscaping of the 18th
century. Further mapwork may clarify some of the confusion.
Boydell 1776 (RM C86); Cadw 1995, 39; HER; NLW Chirk II, No 58 (1675); Chirk III, No
186 (1754); Chirk V, No 13666 (1575-8); Plunkett Dillon and Latham 1988; Pratt 1990, 27;
Saxton 1577; Speed 1611
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Clocaenog Park (Denbs)
15902 SJ 0422 5372
Berry suggests that Clocaenog Park was coterminous with the forest of Brounbannok and that
much of the area remained as common until 1860, when it was formally enclosed.
An account of the local bailiff, in the year 1546 to 1547, refers to the park. It was recorded in
an earlier charter of 1508 and was discharged by virtue of letters patent in 1552, although it
was named in an inquisition of 1609, where it was said to lie in the parishes of Clocaenog,
Llanfwrog, Cyffylliog and Llanynys. A 1546 demise in fee-farm refers to a parcel of land in
the park, between the ‘small stream called Pennant Llayder (Pennant at the head of Nant
Gladur) on the one side and Monock y keven duy (Cefn Du) on the other..’.
Berry has mapped the boundary of Clocaenog Park in as far as this is possible from the
enclosure award. This has been reconfigured and is republished here. In 1994 he estimated
that he had identified about 50% of the park boundary. A short section of this is recorded in
the HER as PRN100748, at SJ 0320 5445, but according to Berry much survived as a wellpreserved earthwork, some of it in the modern Clocaenog Forest.
He considered that that the park extended over some 800 hectares.
See also PRN 39337
Field Observations
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The visit followed the plotted boundary of the park although some sections were not readily
accessible in dense forestry plantations or where there was no public access. In the
description, ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relate to the sides of the boundary in relation to the park
as a whole.
Nature of the boundaries
From SJ 04782 55923 to SJ 04672 55791 is a gully between 1.0m and 1.5m deep and about
5m wide. From SJ 04672 55791 to SJ 03782 54982 it was not possible to view the boundary
closely, but it appears to be an internal-facing bank/scarp. Some sections are missing while
others are still in use as field boundaries. This and the previous section are likely to represent
the fossilised route, preserved by later boundaries. At SJ 03782 54982 the previous section
meets this bank with its external stone revetment and at to SJ 03640 54838 the feature leaves
the line of the boundary at the second. The bank is clearly a later feature which has adopted
the route formerly taken by the park boundary. From SJ 03640 54838 to SJ 03114 54358 is
probably one of the few lengths where the park boundary survives in its original form,
comprising a bank, up to 0.6m high, with an internal scarp up to 1.2m high, partly formed by
a ditch on that side. This is damaged in a few places, particularly where it is cut by the public
road. This section is noted by Berry as being named Clawdd y Parc on the Enclosure Awards
for the area. From SJ 03114 54358 to SJ 03926 52349, the course of the park boundary is
continued by a bank with an external stone revetment, up to 1.2m high, fronting a ditch. It
was not possible to view all of this section owing to the dense forestry but it seems reasonable
to conclude that it is broadly continuous in this form between the two locations. There is
another possible short section at SJ 03963 52386. From SJ 03983 52394 to SJ 04140 52421
the route continues as an external scarp on the opposite side of the stream from the previous
section, until the forest becomes too difficult to access. Nothing of the next section, which
appears to have been recorded by Berry, was conclusively found, bar a possible bank at SJ
06152 53005. The section from SJ 03983 52394 to SJ 07240 53810 is noted by Berry as being
named Clawdd y Parc in the Enclosure Awards for the area. From SJ 06465 53149 to SJ
07945 54238 the park boundary is fossilised as a redundant trackway – in places this is
sunken and stone revetted on one or the other side. From SJ 07970 54250 to SJ 08171 54367
there is a bank with an internal scarp to 1.0m high.
The section from SJ 08193 54379 to SJ 08449 54551 was not examined, but it appears likely
that the route is fossilised by a series of field boundaries.
Berry 1994, 23; CPAT Field Visit: March 2014; .NLW Bachymbyd 176 (1546); 425 (1546-7);
490 (1609);
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Clyro Park, Clyro (Rads)
130132 SO 2090 4375
The identification of a park at Clyro is highly speculative, though its presence would hardly
be unexpected, given the presence of the important castle on the edge of the village.
In 1561 the Court of Augmentations recorded a messuage and 10 acres of arable belonging in
Clyro in the parke hey. Nine hundred metres to the west of the castle is the farm called
Parciau and between the two it is possible to define an elliptical tract of land, edged by a
former lane that ran into Clyro from the west. Few field names are available for this area
which would have covered around 70 acres with the forest of La Royl immediately to the
south.
Thus the evidence is slight and arguably circumstantial, and the boundary definition
speculative. More research in central government records is required to confirm the existence
of the park here.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954
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Cwmaron, Llanbister (Rads)
130123 SO 1489 7024
It is claimed that the deer park attached to the castle of Cwmaron was mentioned in Roger
Mortimer’s Inquisition Post Mortem in 1360. As far as we are aware this IPM has not been
published in full and no further details are thus available at present.
Examination of modern Ordnance Survey maps might suggest that the hill known as Castle
Bank, a few hundred to the west of the castle, would be a likely candidate.
Brown 1972, 16
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Cwmhir Abbey Great Park and Little Park (Rads)
3465/39299 SO 0600 7180
First the place-names. North of Abbeycwmhir village the Ordnance Survey record Great Park
and Little Park. East of Great Park and north of Tyfaenor is Tyfaenor Park (q.v.). Thus three
parks are named in Abberycwmhir, each with its own PRN 39299, 3465 and 21593. Tyfaenor
Park is dealt with below.
A study of Cwmhir Abbey and its environs was conducted by CPAT in 1998 and its findings
are paraphrased here. Documentary evidence for the park(s) associated with the Cistercian
abbey begins in 1241 when, shortly after the erosion of Welsh power in the area following the
death of Llywelyn Fawr, Roger Mortimer was granted, the right to enclose with hedges an
area in the wood of Cwmhir for the purpose of hunting animals of the chase by Phillip, the
Abbot of Cwmhir. It seemed probable in 1998 that this parkland corresponded with the area
known as the Great Park and Little Park.
The character of the Cwmhir parkland was reported by the Radnorshire chorographer
Jonathan Williams who wrote in the early nineteenth century that: the oaks of immense size
which grew in the parks of Abbey-cwm-hir within the recollection of many persons now
living, and which were planted by the hands of the Monks, whose indolence is often unjustly
condemned, afford honourable and gratifying specimens of the perfection which this noble
and majestic species of trees is capable of obtaining on lands in the upper division of the
county .
Williams went on to state that the parkland was seven miles in circumference and was stocked
with upwards of 200 deer, after which he added 'one of the old gates and fragments of pales,
together with the site of two deer-houses, remain still visible’. One of the old deer houses has
possibly been identified as the Great Park Shed (see below) and parts of the northern side of
the parkland boundary of the Great Park and the Little Park have been identified in the forest
to the north, now managed by Forest Enterprise.
Park boundaries: parts of the northern boundary of Little Park and Great Park can be traced
within the modern forestry plantation. It survives in places as a low bank between 0.5-1.0m
high and 1.5m across, parts of which (between SO 0539 7234 and SO 0588 7252) have
evidently been destroyed by a recent forestry road. To the east of this disturbance a length of
621m can be traced while westwards 948m can be traced. The eastern and western sides of
the parkland appear to have been defined by streams. The southern boundary can no longer be
clearly established but it seems likely to have extended to the foot of the steeper ground, just
to the north of the abbey. The division between the Great Park and the Little Park is unclear
but is likely to have been along the line of the Cwmpoeth brook. These suggested boundaries
measure about 3.6 miles. This is well short of the seven miles quoted by Jonathan Williams
although his measurement probably also included Ty-faenor Park.
Great Park Shed: a low stone ruin described as the 'Great Park Shed' on the early editions of
the large-scale Ordnance Survey map lies within Great Park (21585). Today it is known
locally as the Deer Barn, and seems likely to be one of the 'two deer-houses' noted by
Jonathan Williams. It is possible that this represents the site of a medieval hunting lodge as its
position, near to the highest point in the park would not be unusual for a park lodge. A
detailed survey of the ruins was carried out as part of the 1998 project following clearance
work undertaken by Forest Enterprise: the ruined stone walls survive up to 1.2m high and are
visible on the southern, western and northern sides. The southern wall is missing on the
eastern end and there is no eastern wall. A small annex survives to the north. The building
was probably used in some capacity until relatively recently. The debris around the site
contains roof slates, but the main fabric of the walls however appears to be the same stone
used in the construction of the abbey. It is now scheduled as Rd 153.
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The only query today is whether the two parks were enclosed by a single pale as shown
below, taking the 1998 study at face value. If there are reservations it is because where an
establishment had two parks there was normally some physical barrier between them, at least
initially; and secondly the relatively small dimensions of the park pale stand out.
Cadw 1999, 119; Davies 1905; Thomas, D, 1998
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Denbigh, Little Park (Denbs)
130134 SJ 05 65
In 1914 Vinogradoff and Morgan recorded the Little Park (parcus parvum), below the castle
at Denbigh, in the 1334 survey of the lordship, evidently one of the lordship parks attached to
the caput. In 1520 there is a record of Peter Motton being appointed keeper of the Little Park
at Denbigh, and no doubt other documented records of this exist, perhaps under the label of
Castle Park.
This does not seem to have left a residue of field-names, but there are at least two placenames that could be significant: Parc-y-twll (SJ 0525 6522) a now lost farm lay just over
500m to the south of the castle, and Tros-y-parc (SJ 0638 6556) about one kilometre off to the
south-east.
Vinogradoff and Morgan 1914, 56
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Dininlle Park, Ruabon (Flints)
130126 SJ 3171 4081
Recorded by Palmer as being between the Dee to the south and the road from Ruabon to
Erbistock on the north, though no more specifically than that, this early 20th-century authority
saw it as one of the princely ‘reserves’ of the Prices of Powys Fadog. The earliest reference
comes from 1388-9 when 137 perches of paling were fixed around the park of ‘dynunhle’ and
measured by the chief forester. In 1397 Thomas del Green was appointed park keeper of
‘denynthley in Bromfield’, but by the late 15th century the local community held it at farm. In
c.1506 the park had a custodian, appointed by the crown. A survey of 1546 recorded that its
circuit was two and a half miles in length and was enclosed by a hedge and ditch on one side
and the river on the other. As a park it was still intact in 1564 but leased by a certain Sir
Nicholas Fortescue; there is a further reference in 1581 which appears to indicate that it was
still intact, but by 1620 it had been disparked for the new fields and closes covered about 575
acres.
Despite this range of medieval records there is now no obvious trace of the park. But Palmer
claimed that that it was possible almost to trace the boundary from field names that included
Lawnt, Lower back park, Park Gwair, Park, Lower Park and Upper Park, all close to Park
Farm (at SJ 3170 4105). This is confirned by the Tithe map and the appearance of Higher
Launt is particularly interesting. Immediately south of Park Farm was a sinuous and
continuous field boundary cutting across the neck of a loop in the Dee and running between
two steep re-entrant valleys: we are inclined to think this could reveal the former northern
boundary of the park.
The farm of Dynhynlle is located at SJ 3189 4237, little more than stone’s throw east of
Wynnstay Park.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; Palmer 1992, 50; Tithe survey for Ruabon 1844/45
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Emral Hall, Worthenbury (Flints))
130100 SJ 4187 4455
Though marked as a deer park on the late 19th-century large-scale Ordnance Survey mapping,
appearing as a paled park on William Williams’ map of c.1720, and having been the subject
of a detailed Tir Gofal assessment, Emral Hall has escaped being catalogued in the HER, even
components of the landscape park have made it into the record (66749). In part this could be
because Emral was not considered in the Register of Landscapes, Parks and Gardens (1999).
Emral as a manor has a long history. Sir Roger de Pauleston was granted lands here by
Edward I in 1283, and it remained with that family until the early twentieth century. The
house itself was demolished in the 1930s.
Coflein describes the park in the following terms: an oval enclosure, 1,260m north to south by
about 624m, funnelling out along drive on the western side, where a lodge is situated; the
whole defined by current field boundaries: associated with Emral Hall; whilst a house is
mentioned around 1270, the recorded structure appears to have been early 17th century in
origin: called 'Deer Park' on OS County series (Flint. XXII.7 1873): the park enclosure
overlies the cultivation ridges of an earlier field system, with associated settlement;
earthworks of garden/landscape features remain east of the house.
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The deer park at Emral has a strongly elliptical outline with a funnelled exit/entrance on the
west, and extends over about 157 acres. The hall lay within the enclosure, as does the present
house. However, it transpires that this deer park was created at some point before 1819 when
it appears on the Ordnance Survey surveyors’ drawing and after 1764 when an estate map
shows the land divided into fields. That several of the fields carried ‘park’ names reveals the
presence of a former park in the vicinity of Emral, presumably originating in the medieval
era. But the names congregate to the south and east of the 18th-century park revealing that the
two were rather different in shape and location, the former seemingly confirmed by the
slightly stylistic picture presented on Willaim Williams’ map in 1720.
Coflein; HER; Williams c.1720
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Eyton Park, Erbistock (Denbs)
130101
SJ 3365 4374
Palmer identifies Parc Eyton in the lordship of Bromfield, referring to a deed of 1236x70
where Gruffudd ap Madoc gave to his wife Emma the manor of Eyton together with a close in
the park of Eyton purchased from the ‘heirs of Herbystoke’ [the freemen of Erbistock]
another parcel in the same park given by them, seemingly indicating that the freemen had
some proprietary rights in the park. A charter, dated 1329/30, mentions the park and its pales,
but also ‘the old parke of Eyton’, which points to an altogether longer history.
It is tempting to tie the earliest reference to the distinctively shaped enclosure of some 73
acres showing on late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps (and the Tithe Map) at Park Eyton
immediately south-west of Lower Park Eyton, but there is nothing to validate the association
other than the morphology displayed by the map and no suggestive field-names from the mid19th-century records.
Coflein; NLW Chirk V, No 1074 (1329/30); Palmer and Owen 1910, 92; Tithe survey 1844
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Glan Aled, Llanefydd (Denbs)
130102 SH9520 6988
Beside the River Aled to the east of the village of Llanfair Talhaiarn is a near circular if
slightly irregular enclosure formed by lanes, field boundaries and on the south a watercourse.
On late 19th-century maps the circuit is a near complete one, enclosing an area of about 201
acres. Suggestive though this is, it should be stressed that the perimeter on the north and east
largely follows the contours and the circuit could be largely fortuitous.
Glan Aled farm is on the south-eastern perimeter, but a short distance away and just within
the enclosure is another farm called Llys (now Llys-y-wiwer).
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Glaniwrch, Llanrhaiadr ym Mochnant (Denbs)
130103 SJ 1451 2559
The earliest large-scale editions of the Ordnance Survey maps display a large sub-circular
enclosure butting up against the little river Iwrch, a tributary of the Tanat, the area encircled
being around 145 acres. Field boundaries and a trackway create the outline and within the
circuit on the northern side is a farm called Parc-isaf. For the record the larger farm of Park
which lies five hundred metres to the north was rather smaller and was known as Parc-uchaf
in the 19th century. Within the proposed enclosure there is only a single ‘park’ field-name,
immediately to the south of Parc-isaf.
At Pen-y-domen immediately within the south-eastern boundary of the putative park is the
scheduled motte of Tomen Cefn Glaniwrch, occupying a prominent position with an aspect
that takes in a sizeable proportion of the area.
Fieldwork has to date provided no convincing evidence of a park pale. This has admittedly
been limited to publicly accessible locations that include three road crossings of the line and
the north-western sector where a lane follows the proposed boundary for about 20% of its
entire course. No traces of an unusually substantial bank have been identified at ground level
nor on aerial photographs and LiDAR. The only significant feature is the deeply set lane at SJ
1416 2572 which a rock-cut scarp face towers above it to a height of over 3m, and while this
could perhaps have functioned as a park boundary, another explanation could be as plausible.
Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant Tithe survey 1839/41
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Glyndyfyrdwy Park (Denbs)
130095 SJ 1244 4277
The motte long known as Owain Glyndwr’s Mount and a moated site some 250m to the east
lie on the southern bank on the River Dee between Corwen and Glyndyfrdwy, and is
considered to have been the (or a) main residence of the 15th-century Welsh hero. A park,
termed Glyndyfrdwy Parke was mentioned in a bargain and sale of 1640, but there is little
other information available.
West of the motte, 600m away, is Llidiart y Parc (gate of the park). On the far side of the A5,
a block of woodland is known as Parc and twelve hundred metres ot the south-east is the now
abandoned farm holding of Pen-y-parc. Utilising conveniently located streams it is possible to
define an almost complete circuit for a sub-rectangular park with Pen-y-parc at its southeastern corner. It should be stressed that there is no independent evidence for this deer park,
and the name itself may not be of any great age. Furthermore Edward Lhuyd at the end of the
17th century stated that ‘Park Glyndowerdwy is only a place so call’d but never stock’d with
Deer. this park has been ye greatest wood in these parts’.
Lhuyd ii, 44; NLW Bachymbyd No 677 (1640).
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Glyn Park, Abenbury (Wrexham) (Denbs) aka Cefn Park
130099
SJ 3579 4969
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire show an
enclosure pale to the east of Wrexham, which Saxton associated with Abenbury, a township
within Wrexham. This appears to coincide broadly with Cefn Park which lay east and southeast of Wrexham, but in the 19th century there was also Acton park to the north-east of the
town.
S. G. Smith in his on-going research on medieval designed landscapes in north Wales refers
to this as Cefn Park and sees it originating before 1202 when Valle Crucis Abbey was gifted
pasture land to the west and the boundary was already in existence. He cites a court record for
the bailiwick of Marford dating from October 1333 at which the jurors referred back to the
time when Roger de Kettley, chief forester, ‘took all the wood of Glyn, which was previously
common, into a fenced enclosure for the lord’. He refers, too, to the motte and bailey castle at
Wrexham which was in existence in 1161 and was the caput for the area, and therefore a
strong contender for an early park.
The Wrexham historian, A. N. Palmer listed four ‘ancient’ parks in the lordship of Bromfield,
this one presumably being his Parc Glyn Clywedoc (or Glyn Park). In 1563 the Court of
Augmentations was informed that there were two mills in the ‘park of Glynn’ and it was
stated elsewhere in the document that the Clawok (Clywedog) passed through the park.
Palmer noted that in 1620 a jury recognised that tenants had the right to collect kindling or
firewood from the park, and this date of course overlaps with the park’s depiction by Saxton.
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No accurate boundary has been mapped or published for this park, and much more detailed
research is required to rectify this situation. What is shown below is entirely speculative,
offering only a starting point which could lead to substantive modifications.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; Palmer and Owen 1910, 93; Saxton 1577; Smith, S G, blog
(2013); Speed 1611
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Gregynog, Tregynon (Monts)
---- SO 085 976
Gregynog is claimed to have early origins, links to the princes of Powys going back to the
12th century. The date of the earliest park is unknown and few maps survive, added to which a
re-design was threatened by William Eames in 1774, though the scale of his impact cannot be
judged. Given the antiquity of the site, it is tempting to envisage a deer park here, and Great
Wood to the north of the house has a compelling curvilinearity to its form; but there is no
documentary evidence and field survey by one of the writers in 2011 identified nothing
significant.
Cadw 1999, 106; Silvester 2011 survey
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Gwysaney, nr Mold (Flints)
98589 SJ 227 665
The first mention of a park at Gwysaney is as late as 1664 when the wife of the owner
recorded that the park wall was finished and deer had been put in. The park is depicted on an
estate map of 1757, now in the Flintshire Record Office, and this is said to display a wooden
pale on the eastern side and a wall on the west, although in actual fact the map does not mark
this distinction. It is suggested by Cadw that the wall bounding the western edge of the
arboretum is part of this park wall, dating to around 1664. The map shows the park dotted
with trees and woodland within the eastern sector.
Field Observations
Nature of the boundaries
Fieldwork in March 2104 was restricted to publicly accessible routes revealed the following
features. From SJ 23564 66273 to SJ 23289 66116 there was a slight outward-facing scarp, up
to 0.5m high. At SJ 23318 66957 there was no trace of a boundary feature, where one might
have been expected. From SJ 22955 67222 to SJ 22732 66882 there was an inward-facing
bank or scarp, up to about 2.0m high, with an internal ditch; this section was not on the route
recorded on a map showing the park boundary, but was recorded as it appeared to represent
an earlier boundary.
A boundary wall, up to 2.2m high but usually closer to 1.2m high and with flat capping
stones, was first encountered at SJ 22798 66883, but was lost to sight to the east; there was a
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corner in the wall at SJ 22732 66882 and it continued to SJ 22605 66612, with a trackway
running next to its north-west side. There was then a modern brick replacement to SJ 22583
66503 where the stone wall resumed to SJ 22701 66354. From SJ 22701 66354 to SJ 22793
66225 the wall was replaced by a scarp, 1.5m high, overshadowing an external ditch. There
was a gap thereafter and from SJ 22852 66222 to SJ 23001 66008 the wall returned and was
up to 1.3m high and 0.6m thick; castellated capping occurred at the north-west end of the
section, but changes to half-round capping for the remainder of its course to Tan-y-wal house.
The condition and nature of the rest of the circuit – the entire east side and the section running
north-east from Tan-y-wal – is uncertain because there was no further public access.
Fieldwork demonstrated that there was some variation in the form of the park boundary.
Whether this has some bearing on the chronology of the park at Gwysaney is not clear.
Cadw 1995, 109; CPAT Field Visit: March 2014; Gwasaney D/GW/653 (1757)
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Hanmer Park, Hanmer (Flints)
130127 SJ 4595 4008
William Williams’ map of Denbighshire and Flintshire (c.1720) shows a paled park to the
west of Hanmer Hall, which itself lies just to the north-east of the village of that name, and
was in the 19th century the hall was occupied by one branch of the Hanmer family. Its
presence appears to be confirmed by the occurrence of four adjacent fields with park names
immediately to the north-west of the hall. It is not possible from these to determine the
original boundary of the park nor generally to put a date to its establishment of the park, but
we can assume that it was functioning in the 17th century. It was not depicted on John Evans’
map at the end of the century.
That there was a second park but perhaps earlier park at Hanmer is a possibility. Field
boundaries and lanes adopting curvilinear courses hint at an oval park that was still
discernible on late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps, and possibly though not certainly
significantly at this time a dwelling immediately to the east of this area was termed Wrens
Park, but this was to the south-east of Hanmer Hall. No other evidence has been encountered
which could determine whether this layout has any meaning, so it should be treated as
speculative at best.
Hanmer Tithe survey 1839/ 1840; Williams c.1720
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Hawarden Castle, Big Park, Hawarden (Flints)
130131 SJ 3199 6477
It might have been anticipated that Hawarden would have had a deer park accompanying the
Norman castle, but according to Cadw there is no evidence of one. They do draw attention to
the grazing deer shown on Thomas Badeslade’s topographical drawing of the Hawarden
landscape in 1740, but Badeslade did have a penchant for introducing deer into his surveys as
the estate plans of Mostyn Park and Eaton Hall reveal, and this may have been symbolic
rather than reality.
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Flintshire show a paled
enclosure lying immediately to the south-west of Hawarden Castle. This is probably to be
associated with the Big(g) Park, south-east of the castle (though see the Little Park below)
which appears on a large-scale map of the area and is dated between c.1689 and 1729, though
the National Library attribute it to 1720. This map shows the Big Park divided into fields, but
also incorporates a symbol that appears to tie in with the regularly used label of ‘Parke Pales’.
These are, then, all late references to the park at Hawarden but it seems highly likely that both
parks go back into the medieval era.
Despite the guidance of the 1720s map, it is not possible to plot the boundary of Big Park
with any degree of accuracy. Changes to the landscape associated with the Glynne’s
development of the Hawarden estate (for which see Cadw’s Parks and Gardens Register)
were so extensive that many of the earlier features have been erased. The boundary shown
here is a preliminary attempt to suggest the park’s outline.
Cadw 1995; NLW: Glynne Map 5
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Hawarden Castle, Little Park, Hawarden (Flints)
130104 SJ 3182 6520
The Hawarden park map in the National Library, perhaps dating to c.1720, names the Little
Park, showing it as open space and perhaps depicting the pale, though this not particularly
clear on the map. A slightly later map of 1733 does not distinguish the park by name but does
show a large empty space south of the castle mound and bailey which might have formed part
of it; the name itself is confirmed by Edward Lhuyd in his Parochialia at the end of the 17th
century. Additionally there is a document in the local record office offering anecdotes relating
to the enclosure of the park at Hawarden and dated to 1739; this has yet to be accessed.
The maps cited above appear to pre-date the landscaping associated with Broadlane Hall
which in the early 19th century was rechristened Hawarden Castle. The landscape was
significantly reconfigured as a result of that landscaping, as noted above.
The maps of the earlier 18th century have yet to be accurately correlated with the modern map,
and preliminary attempts have been only partially successful.
Cadw 1995, 131; Flintshire Record Office HA 599 (1733); D/BJ/384 (1739); Lhuyd 1909, 94;
NLW: Glynne Map 5; Saxton 1577; Speed 1611
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Henoyd (Henuid) Park, Trallong (Brecs)
130105
SN 9441 3005
Christopher Saxton’s (1578) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Brecknock show a paled
enclosure north of the Usk and to the west of Trallong. William Rees (1932) has the simple
term ‘park’ on his reconstructed map of South Wales and the March in the 14th century, and
this must be taken as confirming an otherwise unauthenticated medieval park. Owen in his
Account of Glamorganshire and Breconshire in 1602 records Henoyd as one of two parks in
the latter county.
The nearest house of any note would appear to be Llwyncyntefin Manor on the north-eastern
edge of Sennybridge.
The 16th-century small-scale mapping coincides with a number of parc names shown on
modern Ordnance Survey maps around SN 945 300. The large-scale late 19th-century
Ordnance Survey maps show both Parc Mawr and Parc-bach, the 1819 Ordnance Surveyor’s
drawing have Parc and Park respectively, but offer no guidance as to where the park lay.
Nichols, J. on George Owen, in the Gentleman’s Magazine 134 (1823), 109; Saxton 1579;
Speed 1611
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Holt Castle Park (Denbs)
101265 SJ 4076 5355
John Norden’s survey of 1620 recorded that there was one parcel of land adjoining the castle
which was called Little Park and covered only nine acres. Palmer glossed this by stating that
the Little Park was in three parts, called Top Park and Bottom Park and extending from the
castle in the north to the gasworks on the south and the river on the east to Castle Street on the
west.
A park field name south of the castle is recorded as PRN 101265. An assessment of late 19thcentury large-scale mapping allows a reasonably convincing park to be described, up against
the south side of the castle, and also goes some way to explaining some of the anomalies in
the town plan of Holt.
Palmer 1991, 96
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Holt(s) Park (Denbs)
101543 SJ 3688 5485
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire show an
enclosure pale to the west of Holt and north of the Common Wood, which they termed Holt
Park.
The HER records that the area was once a park of about 248ha and known as the lord’s park
of Marsley (or Mersley). It lay in Allington township and was mentioned in the Ministers
Accounts for the Lordship Of Bromfield And Yale in 1545-6. In 1595 it was reported to the
Court of Augmentations that the total area of the park was 625 acres, including a lodge. Of
this 409 acres were pasture and there was 175 acres of wooded land. At this time much of the
pale was decayed and insufficient to keep the deer in, but it was considered that for £60 it
could be repaired, as long as wood from the park could be used. There were also two keepers
who had houses in the park and cattle were permitted to graze in the park. Three individuals
had specific rights to allow their cattle into the park and they were charged with repairing
breaches in the pale and keeping out neighbours’ cattle. From another document we learn that
the park had five gates. It was sold by the Crown in 1629.
William Almer was named as parker of M’shley (Mersley) in 1519, and a survey at the end of
Henry VIII’s reign though otherwise undated provides a description of Mersley Park: it was
within a mile of the castle, three miles in circumference, had more lawns and plains than
woodland cover, though the middle was covered with oaks and small timber. At the southern
end was a lodge and there were numerous deer within it (Palmer 1991, 63). Norden
mentioned it in passing in 1620, a ‘parcel of the great Parke called Mercley Parke adjoining to
the manor of Burton upon the north’ (Palmer 1991, 100). In 1628 the park was sold to the
Earl of Bridgewater (Palmer 1991, 73), and according to Pratt was disparked in the 17th
century.
A single tithe map was devoted to a district called Holt Parks in 1844(?) but probably does
not cover the whole of the park. Modern Ordnance Surveys name Parkside, The Parks, Park
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Lane and Lodge Farm (a name which certainly goes back as far as 1795, appearing on John
Evans’ map of North Wales).
According to the Royal Commission through Coflein, place-names in this area suggest a
medieval (and later?) park, centred on The Lodge or Lodge Farm at SJ 3828 5422. It is not
possible to create an accurate boundary of the park, as no maps show the pale or any part of it.
However, there are suggestive boundaries on the south and east and the lodge is known to
have lain close to the south side (see above). The depiction presented her is at best an
approximation; it has a boundary length of nearly 4 ½ miles to compare with the three miles
recorded in 1519.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; Linnard 2000; Palmer (1906-10) 1991; Pratt 1992, 27;
Saxton 1577; Speed 1611; Tithe survey: Holt Parks, Gresford (c.1844).
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Iscoed (Iscoyd) Park, Bronington (Flints)
130106 SJ 5053 4195
The starting point for Iscoed is the late 19th-century Ordnance Survey mapping which terms
Iscoed Park a deer park. This might of course reflect its current use at the time. The Cadw
Register is ambivalent: The park at Iscoed is small and the main part lies to the south-east of
the house with a small section to the north-east. Ostensibly the park is eighteenth-century but
given its siting next to the English border, plus the drop on the north-east and south-east
boundaries, which give it a strategic feel, it is possible that this could be the site of a much
earlier park. References to substantial houses on the site go back to the twelfth century.
Several plans from the late 18th century and early 19th century provide a useful overview of
the park, in particular an estate map of 1781. This displays an almost continuous park pale (it
doesn’t appear to have been present in the vicinity of the house, so perhaps there was a haha), and a deer shed (which had gone by the 1830s). The map also shows elements of a polite
landscape within the park including a rosery and a mount, both of which put in an appearance
on a map prepared by the landscape designer, William Emes at about the same date. Unclear
is whether Emes was responsible for these features or whether they were already present
when he was commissioned. Because of the relative dates, the presence of Iscoed Park on
John Evans’ map of 1795 tells us nothing new. More detailed documentary research might
clarify when the deer park came into existence. It was still classed as such at the end of the
19th century.
Field Observations
The visit followed the plotted boundary of the park, but only where there was public access,
which meant that it was not possible to examine the north-eastern section of the boundary. In
the description, ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relate to the sides of the boundary in relation to the
park as a whole.
Nature of the boundaries
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From SJ 50451 42318 to SJ 50434 42184, and external scarp, up to 1m high, surmounted by a
wooden and iron fence and fronted by a ditch. From SJ 50434 42180 to SJ 50318 42000 a
brick wall about 2.5m high. From SJ 50318 42000 to SJ 50378 41547 an external scarp about
2m high with a (pegged) wooden fence of distinctive form at the base of the scarp, 1.3m high.
From SJ 50378 41547 to SJ 50520 41542 the scarp stops but the wooden fence continues
along the north side of a small track. From SJ 50520 41542 to SJ 50613 41567 a wooden
fence was replaced by iron railings, 1.4m high. And from SJ 50613 41567 to at least SJ 50725
41850, a wooden fence as previously, in variable condition and sometimes replaced by
modern fencing. There is a short section of 2m high scarp as on the western side, but this is
only at the south-east corner of the park. Beyond this the park boundary was not accessible.
CPAT Field Visit: March 2014; Evans 1795; SRRO Estate Map 1781
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Kerry (Monts)
130107 SO 1493 8964
No documentary or place-name evidence has been found to suggest a park south of Kerry
village, and the Tithe survey of 1840/42 is unhelpful with some field-names not filled in on
the schedule and no significant field-names amongst those that have. Yet the landscape
evidence, on the face of it, could hardly be less ambivalent. A distinctive sub-oval area of
around 110 acres is now demarcated by lanes and continuous field boundaries, and within it
towards the southern edge is the motte and bailey known as The Moat. Only the northern side
is indeterminate, but almost certainly adopted a course that lay to the south of the village.
Perhaps the only uncertainty is whether as an alternative hypothesis this might have been the
outer precinct of the pre-Conquest mother church of Kerry.
Kerry Tithe survey 1840/2
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Kilford Park, Llanfarchell nr Denbigh (Denbs)
130121 SJ 0804 6632
One of five parks linked to the lordship of Denbigh, it was referred to as Kylforde parke when
it passed to Elizabeth I from Robert, Earl of Leicester in 1585, while forty years earlier in
1547 the Chirk archives refer to John Salesbury [sic] as the farmer of Kylford Park.
However, a medieval origin cannot be doubted.
Kilford Farm is set on low-lying ground to the east of Denbigh and to the medieval church of
Llanfarchell. In the 19th century north of the by-road and opposite the farm was Cotton Hall
(now gone). Four hundred metres to the south-east besie Afon Ystrad was Parc-canol (also
now gone). Close to the River Clwyd the long sweeping curve of a stream seemingly called
Aberham together with associated boundaries is the only landscape feature suggestive of a
park boundary.
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Kinmel Park, St George (Denbs)
130108 SH 9838 7502
Little is known of the park or the house that it served in the centuries before Wyatt built
Kinmel Park in 1799-1802, but there was a park associated with Old Kinmel for Wynne of
Gwydir gave a herd of deer for Sir John Carter’s new park here, at some point between 1647
when Carter married the Kinmel heiress and his death in 1676. A date for its establishment
would thus fall in the third quarter of the 17th century, and this ties in with William Williams’
depiction of it in c.1720 and also a reference to it by Edward Lhuyd’s respondent which
appeared in his Parochialia compilation in the late 1690s.
It is claimed in the Cadw Parks and Gardens Register that though the precise boundaries
cannot be determined, the rough area can be gauged from the lime and oak plantings to the
west, east and south of Old Kinmel.
Late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps name the deer park immediately to the north of the
old house, and the 1:10560 map in particular provides an outline which appears to conform
broadly with that shown by John Evans on his map of north Wales from 1795. This provides
an atypical rectilinear outline – and one incidentally that is schematically mirrored on
Williams’ map – but beyond this it is probably not possible to go in terms of defining the park
or identifying relict traces of it.
Cadw 1995, 144; Evans 1795; Williams c.1720
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Little Park, Chirk ??
The third of the Chirkland parks and probably the smallest, Little Park has also been variously
recorded as Park Brychan, Parke y Waun and Park y Waun Ugha. Like Black Park it lay in
Bryncunallt township but was being farmed for hay and pasture in 1498 which indicates that
it had been disemparked by the end of the Middle Ages. And in the 1530s John Lleland
alluded to it when he noted that of two parks, only one – Black Park – remained.
Its location is not known, but given the proclivity for having Little Parks close to towns and
castles (e.g. Ruthin, Holt), a location close to Chirk or perhaps the castle seems likely.
Pratt 1990, 27
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Llangattock Park, Llangattock (Brecs)
32594 SO 2139 1740
Known also as Killelan Park particularly in early documents this is now generally known as
Llangattock Park. Almost certainly of medieval origin, by 1587 the whole park was being
leased out. From 16th-century manorial documents this was clearly the major park associated
with the manor of Crickhowell and was thus the park of the medieval sub-lordship centred on
Crickhowell castle.
A medieval custumal, now lost, but copied during the reign of either Henry VIII or Elizabeth I
details the duties of the park keeper and the penalties for trespassers, and then refers to the
boundaries of the park including a ditch by the Usk on the north and an ‘overditch’ on the south,
and on the east a stream called Nant ‘Lomes’. The earliest extant manorial accounts which
cover the period 1382 to 1478 refer to the office of parker.
The park is depicted on an estate map of 1587 (not 1538, pace Cadw 1999) as well as on later
maps including those of the Ordnance Survey.
A small moated site known as Hen Castell just within the perimeter of the park (see the
background mapping on the plan above) contains the remains of a stone tower, and seems to
represent the parker’s lodge. It was identified as such by Samuel Lewis in 1833, who reported
that that ‘in the upper part of the park are some very small remains of a moated building
indicating the site of the lodge occupied by the park keeper’. The source of his information is
unknown. More recent writers have concurred with this 19th-century observation. Redwood
for instance, has pointed out the fine views over the park from the earthwork (pers. comm.)
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Cadw 1999, 157; Lewis 1833, no pagination; NLW Badminton 379 (temp Henry VIII?;380
(1563); 399 (1584); Badminton Map Volume 3 (1587); NLW Tretower (proceedings of the
court of Exchequer) B (1590); Redwood 1996/7, 24-7
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Llannerch Park, nr St Asaph (Denbs)
130129 SJ 0531 7210
Marked as a deer park on the late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps and shown as a paled
park encompassing the house at Llannerch on William Williams’ map of c.1720, there is
relatively little known history to this park, though Edward Lhuyd at the end of the 17th
century referred to the park being well-stocked. It also makes an appearance on two very
similar paintings of Llannerch from around 1662, one in Yale, Connecticut, the other in a
private collection in this country. These show a fenced pale beside the gardens of the house,
together with deer constrained within the pale, all in the foreground of the paintings. We may
suspect that there is an element of stylised depiction in these representations, yet they surely
demonstrate the imposing presence of the 17th-century park.
No mention whatsoever appears in the Clwyd Parks and Gardens Register report on
Llannerch, although the volume does reveal that the first house on the site was of early 17thcentury date.
Williams’ map presents a near-circular park, clearly schematic, yet perhaps enough to suggest
that the 19th-century park was a reduced version of the original which it is tempting to see
running up to a stream, around 700m to the north-west of the house. More certain are the
eastern boundary in the form of the River Clwyd and the southern boundary still in place in
the late 19th century,
Thus Llannerch had a post-medieval deer park, almost certainly of 17th-century origin which
continued as a recognisable entity perhaps into the early 20th century.
Lhuyd (Morris 1909-11) i,104; Lord 2000, 68; Williams c.1720
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Llewenni, Denbigh (Denbs)
130096 SJ 0754 6895
The Court of Augmentations in 1553 referred to certain parcels of land in the park of
Llewenny, and a grant of lands dated 1568 includes 251 acres of land in the park of Lleweny.
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire show an
enclosure pale adjacent to the River Clwyd with Llewenni within it. Williams mapped it in
c.1720, while a letter of c.1750 refers to the ‘disparking’ of Llewenni.
It is clear then the park was in place in the 16th century and continued probably into the early
18th century. This seems to be borne out by John Evans’ map of 1795 which shows the park
and provides a specific boundary for around three-fifths of its course. Williams had
previously depicted it as lying to the west and north of the house. An attempted best-fit
against a more modern Ordnance Survey map gives an area of between 290-312 acres, not
wildly different from the 1568 figure. We should however treat with a pinch of salt the web
site for Lleweni [sic] Parc (a modern creation), which claims that ‘Lleweni Parc was once a
medieval walled pleasure garden – shown on old maps as a “paradais”’. We have yet to
encounter these old maps!
It is possible then that the north and east sides of the Tudor and probably earlier park at
Llewenni, lying north and west of the house of the same name, can be defined with some
accuracy. Field-names – The Park, Middle Park, Further Park and perhaps Maes Park and
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Maesydd y Park – provide additional confirmation for the more northerly extent of the park.
A second group of field-names, immediately to the south of the hall, are more intriguing. At
least five fields were termed The Heys, an unusual term but one which could be cognate with
‘Hay’ which was an alternative term, and an early one, for a hunting enclosure in northern
England and beyond.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; NLW Aston Hall 1162 (1568); NLW Chirk II, No 3285
(1749/50); Saxton 1577; Speed 1611; Tithe survey, Henllan, 1841-2; Williams c.1720;
Winchester 2007, 171
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Llysun Park, Llanerfyl (Monts)
130109
SJ 0309 1069
Samuel Lewis in 1833 wrote: Neuadd wèn, now a farmhouse, was anciently the mansion of
Meredydd ab Cynan ab Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, and appears, from the few
remains of the ancient building which have been found among some rubbish at the back of the
present farmhouse, to have been erected about the eleventh or twelfth century: among these
vestiges were the ruins of an arched window, with mouldings of freestone, in the style of that
age. This mansion was anciently called Llŷs Wgan, from a rivulet near the spot; and
adjoining it is the farm of Llŷsyn, which appears to have derived its name, a diminutive of
Llŷs, a ‘palace’ from its vicinity to this residence.
The history of this place remains to be verified (at present Lewis is a lone voice), but
seemingly the status of Neuadd-wen or Llysun provides a context for the park. Neuadd-wen
(SJ 0427 1141) lies 1.5km to the north-east of Llysun, rather more distant that Lewis would
allow.
Llysun appears in the Herbert correspondence of the 17th century. In 1673, there was a report
of deer dying during the previous winter, but it has to be admitted that there is not specific
reference to the park here. The Llyssin in the correspondence has been equated with Llysyn in
Carno I the publication, but this is not correct. A 1661 letter refers to the deputy lieutenants of
the county ‘meet at Llyssin 20 February, and the country be summoned to appear before them
at Llanervill the same day…’
An estate map of 1734 shows the park in its entirety. The surveyor recorded it as 444 acres in
extent, and a continuous pale was shown. There were gates immediately to the west and east
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of Llysun, and others too perhaps, though these are less clear on the map. Within the park was
a lodge which is named as such and accompanied by an ancillary building.
A second map from the first half of the 19th century (or c.1770 according to the National
Library of Wales) depicts the park as it was being enclosed for farming. It also provides a
context for the relevant place-names such as Pen-y-parc and Parc. These were new creations
from the enclosure of the park, and clearly demonstrate that though such names may well
provide significant pointers to the former presence of a park, they are artefacts of the afterlife
of the park, not contemporary labels. A precise date for the disparkment is not possible at
present, but it was sometime between 1795 when John Evans produced his map of north
Wales and 1832 when the Ordnance Survey surveyors showed the new farming landscape that
the park had become.
Lewis 1833; NLW Powis Castle M151b (1734); NLW Powis Castle M151b; Smith 1968
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Lymore Park, Montgomery (Monts)
130110 SO 2357 9598
A house in Lymore Park, known as Lymore Lodge, was rebuilt in 1675 but it can only be
speculation as to the nature and date of its predecessor. The new house of Lord Herbert of
Chirbury supposedly lay in a deer park and Leymore as an area was referred to as early as the
14th century.
Lymore is though a landscape park, as shown on the earliest mapping for the estate which is
from 1785, and there is no real hint of a predecessor so the evidence for a deer park is largely
circumstantial. The use of the term ‘lodge’ in this instance could be no more than a
picturesque conceit. Yet south of the site of the house close to two ponds and a duck decoy
were two enclosures termed ‘Old deer paddock’ and ‘New deer paddock’, and to the compiler
of the Cadw record this suggested that by the 18th century deer were being confined to these
areas.
More evidence comes from the published Herbert Correspondence for the 16th and
particularly the 17th centuries. Consistently there are references to two parks in the ownership
of the Herberts, Lymore being one, the other assumed to have been Llysun (q.v.). However, a
report in 1644 refers to Montgomery Castle and the parks adjoining; the significance of this
plural term is not clear, but it appears again in 1647 when his two parks [were] destroyed (the
pale above six mile compass totally carried away and burnt)... The implication could be that
there were two contiguous parks enclosed by a single pale.
It appears unlikely that it will be possible to define the deer park at Lymore, though the
likelihood that it existed in the Middle Ages seems high, particularly with Montgomery
Castle, a capital messuage, close by.
Powis Castle Map Volume 11 (1785); Cadw 1999, 164; Smith 1968; Welton and Welton
2003, 51;
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Maes-Mynan, Bodfari (Flints)
120454 SJ 1165 7061
The history of Maesmynan is a long one for it was one of the main homes and manorial
centres of the Greys, lords of Ruthin and Dyffryn Clwyd in the 14th century, and Davies
argued that it was probably a Welsh centre before the Edwardian Conquest. Its importance is
also evidence from the fact that Edward Lhuyd’s correspondent at the end of the 17th century
referred to it as Lhys mynnan, als Lhys maes mynnan. For all that Maesmynan is a rather
anonymous entity with relatively little written about it, but a medieval park here thus seems
highly likely.
A dispute regarding enclosures on Moel y Park is referred to in a letter of 1734 and Moel y
Park appears on Thomas Badeslade's 1742 estate map of Maes Mynan, as it does on modern
Ordnance Survey maps. Richard Fenton touring Wales in 1808 linked Maesmynan with the
last Llewelyn, though whether this was nothing more than a local tradition is unclear.
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However, he also wrote of the large enclosure providing venison ‘called to this day Moel y
Park, and traces of the Fence that inclosed it may be seen somewhere under this hill’.
Badeslade, indeed mapped both ‘an old wall’ (120455), which divided Moel y Park from the
open hills, and a boundary ditch (120455).
Field Observations
Nature of the boundaries
Fieldwork in March 2014 confirmed that Badeslade’s observations plotted on his Maesmynan map of 1742 were reasonably accurate. The original plot of the deer park boundary
based solely on the reading of Badeslade’s map proved to be inaccurate in places, but has
been retained above.
From SJ 12089 70141 to SJ 12548 70713 there was a bank with an external ditch, together
with a later bank topped by a modern fence; the internal scarp of the main bank was a
maximum 0.6m high, the external scarp into ditch up to 1.2m high. From SJ 12548 70713 to
SJ 11619 71420, the bank had an internal stone revetment, up to 0.8m high, facing a terrace.
At three points along this there were wrought iron supports, 2.5cm by 3.5cm in cross-section,
for a fence about 2.0m high. From SJ 11619 71420 to SJ 11570 71380, the bank was up to
1.0m high. From SJ 11570 71380 to SJ 10674 70735, the bank was up to 1.0m high on its
internal face, and there was an internal ditch. From SJ 10674 70735 to SJ 11011 69993, the
bank had an internal stone revetment, up to 0.8m high. From SJ 11057 70528 to SJ 11696
70093 the remains of the wall, spread to a width of 5m wide and 0.4m high, extends from a
7m-square structure and runs south-west, then south, east and north-east for about 1.2km
before fading out. Small sections of wall coursing are visible. It is likely that it extended
further north-north-east to SJ 11057 70528, but this length is covered in bracken –
Badeslade’s plan suggests it did, perhaps as far as SJ 11166 70793.
From SJ 11805 70077 to SJ 11857 70185 there is a simple bank, although this may not be part
of the park boundary as it approaches the next section at right-angles. From SJ 11857 70185
to SJ 12089 70141 the bank has an internal ditch, the scarp up to about 0.9m high.
The fieldwork observations raise a number of issues including the possibility of a degree of
phasing, the question of whether the internal ditch was a feature specifically designed to
constrain the deer or the easiest means of creating the bank, and whether the earthwork and
wall features would have been recognised as a park boundary without the aid of the 18thcentury map and the surviving place-names. A more detailed analysis of the field notes in
conjunction with the 1742 map, and possibly further fieldwork is required.
Estate map by Badeslade 1742 (Bangor University Archives); Fenton 1808 (Fisher 1917,
141); NLW Chirk III, No 5467 (1734); Davies 1978, 59ff
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Mathrafal, Meifod (Monts)
130111 SJ 1309 1023
Given the illustrious history of Mathrafal as a court of the princes of Powis, it would not be
surprising to find a park in the vicinity. The sole evidence comes from maps, both the modern
Ordnance Survey issues and historic ones going back to 1774. From these it is evident that
there was a park lying immediately to the south of Mathrafal Castle and set into a bend in the
River Banwy.
The full extent of the park cannot be gauged but it is extremely likely that what is labelled as
the park today and indeed was similarly shown in 1774 is only a remnant of the original
enclosure. The Tithe survey adds a row of four fields with park names to the west of the area
labelled Mathrafal Park on early Ordnance Survey maps, but the stretch of ground that lies
between the latter and the river and which would be a strong contender is simply identified as
‘Long Meadow’. A farm known as Pen-y-parc in the late 19th century on the south-western
edge of the area named as Mathrafal Park has now gone.
There is no reported evidence of a park bank, but then again no one has yet looked for it.
Llangyniew Tithe Survey 1849/50; Powis Castle maps, 1774
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Molewick Park (Denbs)
----
Not known
The survey of the lordship of Denbigh in 1334 refers to a park at Moillewik, and this is
corroborated by the appearance of Mollewike Parke in the 1585 sale of the lordship of
Denbigh to Elizabeth I, the will of John Lloyd of Molewick Park in 1582, and a 1629
document issued to Sir Thomas Myddelton.
Recourse to the standard sources of information on places in Denbighshire has failed to
identify Molewick Park or its location. However, it is a reasonable assumption that it can be
equated with ‘a tenement called the lodge and a park in the townships of Lleweny, Erriviat
and Denbigh and parishes of Henllan and Denbigh called moelewig parke’ in a Chirk
document of 1666, and similar referred to by Edward Lhuyd at the very end of the 17th
century as Moel Ewig Park. .
For further speculation see Snodiock Park.
NLW: Chirk 5, 13990; Chirk 6 9462; Lhuyd i, 104
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Mostyn Hall, Mostyn (Flints)
130113 SJ 1464 8098
Mostyn Hall itself supposedly has architectural fragments that go back to the 15th century and
it is known that a deer park lay to the west of the house, though its age is uncertain. There is
no evidence of a boundary to the park and Cadw in the Parks and Gardens Register state that
today it is enclosed only by mixed woodland. Badeslade’s map of the Mostyn demesne from
1742 shows deer grazing in the park but no boundary; William Williams’ map of c.1720
seems to indicate an enclosure defined by a pale, but possibly this was a fanciful
representation?
Badeslade 1742 (Bangor University Archives); Cadw 1995, 173; Williams c.1720
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Nerquis Hall, Nerquis (Flints)
130114 SJ 2407 5993
This has the potential for being a curiosity through its date, as the small park of about 27 acres
to the north and south of the house was reputedly created around 1790 by the new owner,
John Gifford, and was called a deer park, late indeed and perhaps a deliberate anachronism, or
more likely status emulation. Cadw thought it extremely simple, ‘with little ornament and
planting. However, a long ha-ha was made on the southern boundary of the garden to give
views out across the southern part’. This sounds more a landscape park than a deer park.
Samuel Lewis in 1833 referred to the old mansion erected in 1638 but made no mention of a
deer park.
Lewis 1833; Cadw 1995, 177
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Newhall, Chirk (Denbs)
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire shows an
enclosure to the north-west of the castle with Newhall on its edge. This in itself brings into
question the veracity of the historic mapping for New Hall lies north-east of the castle, not to
the north-west. For further analysis see Chirk Castle park.
Saxton 1577; Speed 1610
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New Radnor (Rads)
130124
SO 2239 6144
A park or parks at New Radnor were named on William Rees’ historical map of south Wales
produced in 1932, one to the west of the town and castle, the other to the north-east. Rees’
reasons for defining the park or parks here are unknown. The only documentary reference
encountered to date is in the records of the Court of Augmentations which refers to a field in
the Ladies felde in [the] parke of Radnor; this is not dated but will be from the period
spanning the 1530s to the 1550s.
The lane leading east from New Radnor and believed to be of considerable antiquity is, in the
vicinity of the town, known as Park Lane. In the fields immediately to the north of the lane
are seven with park names, two of them edged by a field boundary that has a distinct curve for
a length of over 470m.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; Powys Archives: 1790s map of New Radnor parish; Rees
1932
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Old Gwernyfed (Brecs)
80609 SO 1763 3747
Its park extended westwards from near the old house, a late Elizabethan structure, and was the
location for the newer Gwernyfed, built in the 1870s, about 1.5km to the north-west. The park
seems to have been nearing completion in 1605 and was referred to in a wedding poem of that
year (Briggs and Lloyd, 2006, 15). By 1631 it had deer in it, while a further document of
1688 notes the park ‘pale joining to Tyle Glas’. Edward Lhuyd, writing in 1698 or
thereabouts stated that there was ‘a place in Gwernyvet Park [that] goes by ye name of twyn
yr hên gastelh’ and that ‘tyles and table stones are dug in ye park’. Briggs suggests that the
Gaer hillfort may have been used as a deer corral (2006, 19). A hunting lodge had been
constructed near the centre of the park by the middle of the 19th century and it is suggested
that the new Gwernyfed was built on its site. Late 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps show
Gwernyfed Park and term it (or part of it) a deer park, with the new house set within it.
Defining the park is more difficult. A demesne map of 1756 shows the Elizabethan house and
what is presumed to be the lodge, as well as two large well-wooded enclosures to the west of
the old house. These are presumed to be the park, or at least the core of it, but there seems to
be no evidence on the map in the form of a drawn pale or a set of names to corroborate this
assumption, nor a separate terrier. Briggs made no attempt to delineate the park, not
surprisingly perhaps, as his main interest has been in the gardens. It can only be speculation
then that the area as we have defined it is the early 17th-century park with an outline more
irregular than many. The 19th-century Ordnance Survey map displayed a ‘keeper’s lodge’ at
SO 1788 3760.
NLW Map 7037 (1756); Cadw 1999, 114; Briggs 1991, fig 12.11; Briggs and Lloyd 2006
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Old Park (Flints)
130115
SJ 3280 6408
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Flintshire show an enclosure
pale to the west of Broughton termed Old Park. As Hawarden Castle park is also shown by
Saxton, it seems improbable that this could be only a simple duplication for a single park, and
a misplacement seems more probable (cf Chirk above). Bowen and Kitchen in the Royal
English Atlas (1750) position it immediately to the south of Hawarden, but conventional
wisdom has it that their accuracy is not to be relied on. Confirmation of its existence,
however, comes from Edward Lhuyd’s Parochialia compiled at the end of the 17th century.
Under Hawarden he records that there were formerly two parks, the first being ‘The Old Park
in S[i]r W[illia]m Glyn’s L[or]dship, which belong’d formerly to ye E. of Derby’, the second
being the Little Park (for which see Hawarden above). This then is a clear signal that the
Hawarden lordship, at least in more recent times, held two parks in this area of north-east
Wales.
A cursory examination of the early large-scale Ordnance Survey maps reveals Park Farm at
the NGR given above, with, interestingly fish ponds nearby and, given the sporadic linkage
between parks and warrens, we can also note Warren Mountain and kindred warren placenames immediately to the south-west of Broughton (around SJ 324 629). Possibly a careful
trawl through larger-scale 18th-century estate maps relating to the lordship of Hawarden may
expose some relict place-names, but this is an avenue of research that needs to be followed up
outside the framework of this project. It is not at present feasible to attribute any boundary to
Old Park.
Lhuyd 1909, 94; Saxton 1577; Speed 1611
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Park, Caersws (Monts)
130098 SO 0041 9148
A bond of 1611 mentions ‘Park lands’, and the associated description suggests these were the
Park Wood depicted on the 1st edition OS map. Park Wood lies at SO 0039 9147, the house
known as Park at SO 0092 9204 and immediately to the north of the latter is a residence
called Gate, the name of which may or may not be significant.
It seems likely that this is Park Penpryce which was the name of the estate and appears in at
least one early 17th-century document relating to the Pryce family. Park Penpryce also puts in
an appearance on the memorial to Matthew Pryce (d.1699) in Llanwnog church. The park
itself was still in existence in 1706 (Shropshire Archives 4066/3/9). The date of its
establishment is unknown.
NLW Celynog 34 (1611); OS 1st edition Mont 42NW (1891); Shropshire Archives; Wiltshire
and Swindon Archives
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The Parks, Penley (Flints)
130128 SJ 4237 3973
A park known only from its field names, this was according to Derek Pratt ‘a manorial park
of indeterminate function… The highway to Hanmer [was] Park Lane (Y strytyparke, 1476)
[and] seemingly marked the southern boundary of the park’. Pratt considered the possibility
that it had disappeared as a park by 1477 when maes y parke suggested an agricultural use,
albeit in one unit.
Seven field names cluster together but as Pratt pointed out they provide no more than 47-51
acres in total. To this can be added a further field, adjacent to the others and showing on an
estate map of c.1790 which increases the size though not significantly. Thus, though clearly
of medieval origin, there is no historical documentation (which Pratt would undoubtedly have
located) and no information on the estate that it belonged to.
Pratt and Pratt 2000, 35; SRRO Estate map of Penley and Halton, c.1790
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Pool Park, Efenechtyd (Denbs)
130092 SJ 0982 5555
An inquisition of 1609 mentions the capital messuage, tenement and park in Llanfwrog and
Efenechtyd called Poole Parke, otherwise Parke y Pysgodlyn. Once a home of the Salusbury
family (from the mid-16th century), it passed by marriage to the Bagots, but there is no record
of a house here until the sixteenth century. The park appears to have had its origins in the
medieval period for it was one of the five hunting reserves belonging to Ruthin Castle, and
according to R I Jack was known as Glympolva (Polpark). This takes its creation back to at
least 1284. Today it appears to be only a farming establishment, hence the reason perhaps
why it did not feature in the original published Parks and Gardens Register for Clwyd (1995).
However, it has now been registered, probably in 2007.
Poole Park is located at the NGR given above and the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map
(1874) depicts parkland running off to the north and north-east, together with a lodge. Few if
any traces of the medieval deer park have been identified but Cadw refer to an interesting
linear earthwork running north-west/south-east down the slope from a field boundary to the
drive next to the kitchen garden wall. It consists of a low bank, with a ditch on its north side.
At its north end it turns through a right angle and then runs northwards before petering out
after a short distance. A few trees – rowan, elm and sycamore – grow on the bank. It is
probable that this marks the north boundary of a former belt of woodland that ran down the
slope here. However, Cadw suggest that it could also mark the former southern boundary of
the deer park: a ditch inside the bank (to its north) is consistent with this interpretation.
Cadw, n.d.; NLW Bachymbyd 490 (1609)
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Porthamel, nr Talgarth (Brecs)
130116 SO 1692 3451
Christopher Saxton’s (1578) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Brecknock show a paled
enclosure around Great Porthamel butting up against the river Llynfi. Owen in his Account of
Glamorganshire and Breconshire in 1602 records this as one of two parks in the latter county.
Porthamel is believed to be the major medieval manor house of the area, built in the late 15th
century, within a walled precinct the stone gatehouse of which survives. It was the seat of Sir
William Vaughan, the first sheriff of the county. In all likelihood, however, its history as a
manor goes further back in the Middle Ages.
In the absence of a specific plan it is necessary to resort to minor place-names and relict
boundaries as shown on the 1st Edition of the large-scale Ordnance Survey map. East of
Porthamal as it was still termed in the later 19th century was Park Wood and The Park which
when taken with Bradwys Wood to the north had a near continuous eastern boundary
exhibiting a degree of curvilinearity. Interestingly, just beyond this boundary was a farm
called the Lodge (or Talgarth Lodge in 1814). To extend this on the south side close to the
town of Talgarth is more difficult not least because of the presence of the town’s open fields,
fossilised into strips by the 19th century, and if it did run down to the river the area enclosed
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would have been substantial, in the region of 680 acres. An alternative hinted at by the 1814
Ordnance Surveyor’s survey drawing and supported by an Ashburham estate map of the
1770s and also by the distribution of park field names is that a roughly oval park existed on
rising ground away from the plain of the Llynfi. It is at odds with the picture presented by
Saxton, but with an area of around 230 acres it caries more conviction.
Nichols, J. on George Owen, in the Gentleman’s Magazine 134 (1823), 109; Saxton
1579/Speed 1611
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Powis Castle Park
67195 SJ 2074 0620
Relatively little information has entered the record of what must have been one of the longeststanding deer parks in eastern Wales. This largely is due to the omission of the park from The
Parks and Gardens Register for Powys (1999), presumably because it was not possible to
negotiate access. The result is that the castle itself and the gardens are in the register, the
surrounding landscape is not.
Today, the park comprises four areas - Deer Park (around the castle but mainly to the north),
Lower Park, Middle Park and Upper Park, all three being to the south-west of the castle with
Lower Park closest and Upper Park furthest away (data derived from the HER).
The earliest map that is available to us is Humfrey Bleaze’s map of Welshpool which was
produced in 1629 and extends beyond the town to take in Powis Castle and its immediate
environs. It delineates the Little Park between the castle and the town, the Newe Park to the
north of the castle though separated from it by an area of meadow or pasture known as The
Condit Leasow and, further to the south-west, the periphery of the Great Parke. From this it
might be deduced that formerly that had been two parks, the Great and Little Parks, and a
further area, the New Park, was subsequently added, perhaps in Elizabethan times.
When Robert Hale mapped the estate in 1780, these three elements had effectively been
integrated into one, Little Park Meadow below Little Park shown in 1629 had also been
incorporated and The Condit Leasow also appears to have been taken in. Hale listed this as the
deer park and it appears to have run up to the walls of the castle (as it does today). An arcing
boundary shown on Hale’s map represents what was surely the south-western boundary of the
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original Great Park, now lost as a landscape feature. Beyond were other areas of parkland,
equating with the present Middle and Upper Parks, (and signalled too by places such as Peny-parc and Park Farm) but these could be a result of the landscaping undertaken in the 1770s,
the scale of which to the best of our knowledge not been adequately researched. The deer park
was enlarged further probably in the 19th century with pasture land being taken in to the eastnortheast of the castle, as shown on the large-scale Ordnance Survey first edition map of
1887.
Setting these changes in their historical context requires more research than is feasible within
this project. Powis Castle is considered to have had its origins in the 12th century and, in spite
of periods when it was perhaps not properly maintained, seems to have seen continuous
occupation up to the present. It is suggested by Cadw that the transformation from castle to
mansion commenced in the 15th century, and continued with the acquisition of the castle by
the Herbert family in 1587 and has stayed with various branches of the Herbert and Clive
families over the succeeding four hundred years. We can speculate that the creation of the
Great and Little Parks could have occurred in the late Middles Ages, that the infilling between
them with the New Park took place in Tudor times as noted above, and that the emergence of
a single deer park was of 17th- or 18th-century origin. William Emes’ was employed from the
early 1770s to redesign the gardens, and it is possible, though no more than that at present,
that he was responsible for extending the parkland south-westwards along the ridge beyond
what is now Park Farm. The possibility that this could have occurred at an earlier date cannot
be dismissed entirely for Sir John Cullum in 1774 wrote of ‘[Powis’s] extensive woody Parks
of many hundred acres…’ , while observers in the 1730s and 1740s referred to only a single
park, though might perhaps be only a simplification. Finally we might note that the national
Trust have claimed that there were extensive improvements to the castle, gardens and park
between 1800 and 1850.
Bleaze 1629; Cadw 1999; Emes 1771; Farnolls Pritchard 1771; Hale 1780; National Trust
1989; Silvester 2008
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Ruthin Castle Park, Ruthin (Denbs)
19475 SJ 124 579
The castle at Ruthin is medieval and it is reasonable to assume that there was a contemporary
deer park here lying south and west of the castle itself. Ian Jack noted a Little or Town Park
at Ruthin in the medieval era, said to lie in Caervallen in the parish of Llanrhudd. The Court
Rolls for Ruthin in c.1296 refer to the lord’s meadow near the little park. Early references to a
park from the 1530s refer to a master forester, avoiding any mention of deer. The park had
been broken up into farming units by 1637 when Myddelton of Chirk leased out five parcels
of land in the ‘park of Ruthin …lying in Caervallen in the parish of llanrhudd’. Cadw do go
on to say that ‘the nineteenth-century park would also have included the Coed Merchon [a
wooded hill still further south-west] as part of the hunting grounds of the estate’, a declaration
that does not appear to be substantiated anywhere.
In the HER are ‘Coed Marchan which was classed as reserved woodland but recorded in 1655
as Parke Coed Marchan’ (19475); and lengths of former deer park wall of Coed Marchan the wall is up to 2m high of quarried stone bonded with mortar and probably a post-medieval
rebuild of an earlier boundary (19476, 39151, 39074 & 39073). In fact the park wall survives
largely intact and in the 19th century exotic tree species were planted and rides established.
Place-names provide us only with Park Farm at SJ 1238 5737.
Late 19th-century large-scale mapping display large tracks of park-like landscape which
equates with Coed Marchan. The assumption might be made that André Berry in his study of
the parks in the lordship of Ruthin would have made more of this park had the remains
warranted it, but it should be observed that his article published in 1994 specifically states
that his fieldwork was not complete, and regrettably the demise of Clwyd County Council in
1996 almost certainly curtailed this work. Perhaps we should be looking for two parks at
Ruthin? This could be implicit in the term ‘little park’, but it has to be admitted that nowhere
is such a distinction made. Yet significantly perhaps, large-scale late 19th-century Ordnance
Survey maps show a very distinctive and continuous curving boundary to the south and southeast of the town and towards Llanrhudd. With the river Clwyd as its western perimeter this
would have an area of around 340 acres, and it contains within it Park Farm.
In summary the Little or Town Park lay to the east of the town and was a medieval creation
(130117). Coed Marchan or Merchon seems to have been reserved woodland, but may have
been turned into a park in the post-medieval era.
Berry 1994, 15; Cadw 1999, 233; Jack 1969, 31: NLW catalogue; Roberts 1893, 25
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Segrwyd Park, Denbigh (Denbs)
130091 SJ 0420 6430
Segroit Park is mentioned in several places in the 1334 Survey of the Honour of Denbigh. A
lease dated 1487 includes four acres of land lying within the park of Segroit. Further evidence
is given by an assignment of two acres of land called ‘Y Kay glas’ in the park of Segroyt,
dated 1561/2, and a grant of lands dated 1568, which includes 15 acres of wood in the park of
Segroet. A grant of 1572 referring to the former plot describes it as being bounded by the
‘ditch of the park of Segroyt on the west’, a second plot lying between the ‘said ditch of
Segroyt on the east…. and the way leading from the church of Llanrhayader (Llanrhaeadryng-Nghinmeirch) to the water mill called Velyn Segroyt on the west….’. In the proceedings
of the Court of Augmentations during the time of Henry VIII the park was reputed to
contain 700 acres.
Pinpointing the park at Segrwyd is not straightforward. Edward Lhuyd recorded it as one of
thirteen houses of note in the parish of Llarhaeadr in the late 17th century, and it exists as a
modern farm at SJ 0422 6464. John Evans on his map of 1795 depicts what should be them
park surrounding the house, but at such a scale that it is not feasible to recreate its outline
accurately. Assuming this was the park the north-west and south-west sides are reasonably
secure, but not the remaining perimeter of what appears to be a rather rectilinear park.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; NLW Bachymbyd 9 (1487); 14 (1561/2); 16 (1572); NLW
Aston Hall 1162 (1568); Vinogradoff and Morgan 1914
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Snodiock (Garthsnodiock) Park, nr Denbigh (Denbs)
130118 SJ 0457 6671
Christopher Saxton’s (1577) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Denbighshire show an
enclosure pale immediately to the north of Denbigh, termed Snediock Park. It does not
however feature in the 1334 Survey of the Honour of Denbigh, at least not under this name,
but Vinogradoff and Morgan (1914) positioned the villata of Garthsnodiock north-east of
Foxhall.
In the reign of Henry VIII, Roger Salusbury was brought before the Court of Augmentations
for exploiting the king’s park called Garth Snodyock. He had felled £200 worth of oak, ash
etc and sold it, and used timber from the park and stone from the king’s quarry in the park to
build his new house., worth at least £60. He had made a lime kiln adjacent to the pale of the
park without a licence and maintained the kiln with timber from the park. He had also
enclosed a little coppice and paled the same with timber from the park, so that the king’s deer
could not pasture in the coppice. He had, too altered the common path in the park which the
King’s subject used so that no one could see the beasts and cattle that he grazed in the
coppice. Salusbury had of course an explanation for all this but also added that the park
perimeter was about 1.5 miles about, and that a gate in the pale lay close to the town of
Denbigh.
Garth Snodiock park is mentioned in a document of 1619/20, and amongst various documents
is a written survey of the park of Snodiock was compiled in 1623. No maps contemporary
with the documents have been encountered, unfortunate for a park which generated so much
written material.
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Early editions of the Ordnance Survey map from the late 19th century have Tan-y-parc near
Pentre on the road north out of Denbigh but little else. So for the present the park remains
unlocated, but south of Foxhall there is a distinct pattern of boundaries with Lodge Farm on
the south-eastern periphery. This could reflect the outline of a park and may be Snodiock, but
it is close enough to Henllan and Eriviatt to be the missing park of Molewick (Moelewig),
perhaps made more likely by the fact that a John Lloyd of Molewick Park died in 1582 and
the Lloyds were the owners of Foxhall.
Lewis and Conway Davies 1954; NLW Bachymbyd 742 (1619/20); Saxton 1577; Speed 1611;
Vinogradoff and Morgan 1914
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Stanage (Rads)
130119 SO 336 723
Christopher Saxton’s (1578) and John Speed’s (1610) maps of Radnorshire show an
enclosure pale at Stanage (named by Speed as Standish).
The Parks and Gardens Register (1999) has the following: The early history of the park at
Stanage Park is unclear but it appears that the park probably originated in the Tudor period,
perhaps even the late medieval. Culled from ancient woodland, the area of the park would
probably have been used by the de Brampton family as a deer park, similar to that of their
neighbours and relations, the Harleys of Bampton Bryan. In his Red Book, Repton noted the
‘antiquity’ of the site [and] the presence of a deer park to the west… but it is unclear whether
these descriptions … are not just poetic licence’. It is assumed that Repton retained the deer
park in his new west park.
The landscape park at Stanage already carries a PRN (13333), but not the deer park so one
has been given, though not based on what appears to be a general assumption that the park lay
to the west of the present house. Within this area it is not possible to define a likely circuit for
the deer park, though it might be argued that too much subsequent landscaping has erased the
line of the pale as far as can be determined. What appears to be absent from the above
assumption which is based wholly on Repton observations is that the wooded area to the north
of the house is called Park Bank Wood. This is a sub-oval area, defined in the late 19th
century by a dingle (or valley) on the south-west and boundary features on the north and east,
with Stanage on the southern perimeter. The outline will no doubt have been strongly
influenced by the natural topography – a conical hill – but this has the appearance (and the
name) of an enclosed park, it present wooded nature in part a reflection of period of planting
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after 1807 (Cadw 1999, 237). Unfortunately, other than in Repton’s red book of 1803, there
are no early maps of Stanage that have survived.
Saxton 1578; Speed 1611; Cadw 1999, 236-7
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Strata Marcella, nr Welshpool (Monts)
64675 SJ 2490 1056
The Cistercian Abbey of Strata Marcella, otherwise Ystrad Marchell, lies slightly above the
flood plain of the Severn only a short distance from the river. It is within the parish of
Buttington, about The physical remains have been studied by CPAT in recent years with grant
aide from Cadw, and the research has included an assessment of the environs of the
monastery. Estate maps from 1618 and 1780 throw some light on the presence of a park
associated with the abbey, but we are not aware that this has been previously been recognised.
The 1618 map records various field-names including a group of four park names: Lower
Parke, Midle Parke, Rough Parke and Parke R..th (64675-64677). These lie in a broad and
virtually unbroken arc to the west of the abbey buildings and share an almost continuous
western boundary. The evidence points then to a deer park, perhaps broadly elliptical in shape
and at least one kilometre long. Alternatively if the Severn formed its boundary on the east,
then the abbey itself would have lain within the park.
It is possible that the park could have been established after the Dissolution, but if so it had a
remarkably short life span for within a maximum period of eighty years it been fragmented
into fields as shown by the early 17th-century estate map. It is much more likely that this was
a park that was set out while the abbey was still in existence.
Jones and Silvester 2012; NLW Powis Castle map 1618
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Trebarried, Llandefalle (Brecs)
130097 SO 1178 3510
Forty acres of park at Trebarried is mentioned in a record of the possessions of the late
William Parry in 1630, although what type of parkland is recorded is not known. It may be
the area to the east of Felinfach recorded in the HER (SJ 1188 3592), but this seems distant
and a park closer to Trebarried itself seems more likely. Unfortunately there is no other
documentation to assist identification, and the Tithe apportionment for the parish does not
record field names.
NLW Aberdihunow 21 (1630)
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Trevalyn Hall, Rossett (Denbs)
130135 SJ 3663 5663
Trevalyn Hall is classed as one of the most important Elizabethan houses in north-east Wales,
and Cadw state that ‘although there are no deer left at Trevalyn the deer parks remain, now
as arable farmland. These are probably contemporary with the house, dating to c.1576. Big
Park and Pine Tree Park lie to the south-west of Trevalyn Hall, bordering on the village of
Marford. To the north-east of Pine Tree Park is Walnut Tree Park. Separating an old
orchard, now an empty paddock, from these parks are large earthwork embankments about
1.5m high. These embankments are still very distinct on the south-west and south-east sides
but rather indistinct on the north-west side of the orchard. Park Bychan which is to the southeast of the orchard has been incorporated into the grounds of nearby Trevalyn House. All the
component parts are listed on a mid eighteenth-century map of the estate’.
Promising as this is, it is not as straightforward as it might appear, not least because this park
is set in a developing landscape that has witnessed considerable changes over the last two
hundred years with the growth of Rossett and Marford and changing field patterns. It is
initially unclear from the Cadw terminology above whether there are multiple parks here or
whether the named parks are in fact field names and relate to a single park; no detailed,
annotated map is available in the Cadw volume which depicts the features that are referred to;
there is no known mid-eighteenth century map of the Trevalyn Estate, so it is assumed that
the evidence comes from the 1787 map which is referenced; and the best copy of this is said
to be at a solicitors’ office in Wrexham – while one might hope that this has now been passed
to a relevant record office, there is nothing to suggest that this is the case.
From an annotated copy of the map included in the Cadw file on Trevalyn, we can establish
that there are four fields with ‘park’ names lying to the south-east and south-west of Trevalyn
Hall. That the names have been incorporated into the 1787 map suggests that not only were
they current, despite the fact that the park had been enclosed and divided into separate fields
but also that the disparkment was relatively recent at that time. There can be little doubt,
however, that these four fields were originally combined in a single park. The original outline
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of that park, it is now virtually impossible to determine, and the banks mentioned by Cadw
are also unlocatable, at least without further fieldwork.
Cadw 1995, 253
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Tyfaenor (now Dyfaenor), Abbeycwmhir (Rads)
39299 SO 0735 7171
Tyfaenor was built by Richard Fowler of Sheriff of the county in 1655 and it is claimed that
this was set within its own deer park. Assuming this to be correct we have in Tyfaenor a latefounded deer park. The other two parks in the immediate area are considered to be monastic
deer parks and are claimed to represent one of only a few surviving areas of monastic
emparkment in Wales; they are considered above. There is also a reference, unverified, to
parkland being established here by Edmund Mortimer in 1241.
For Tyfaenor, 19th-century and modern Ordnance Survey maps name Ty-faenor Park,
although these maps are not overly helpful in defining its extent. It is not evident from these
for instance whether the valley known as Cwm Cyncoed defined the western side of the park
and whether Bachell Brook had a similar function on the east. The Ordnance Survey
surveyors’ drawing of 1817 provides a more coherent boundary, showing (perhaps
schematically) the entire area wooded. Given the sparsity of early mapping for Radnorshire
and the fact that this park appears to have none of the curvilinearity associated with many
earlier deer parks this is probably the best definition that we can hope for.
Cadw 1999, 119; Thomas, D, 1998
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Vaynor Park, Berriew (Monts)
130120
SJ 1710 0041
A house at Vaynor was established in the late medieval era, and a deer park seems likely to
have been an attribute at this time. As Cadw point out, however, it is possible that the park
could have been developed from the early 17th century when the present house was built, and
indeed the very rectangular outline that it presents might favour a later date. Today the estate
itself carries the name Vaynor Park.
An estate map of 1764 show the deer park with a fenced pale in place for the entire perimeter,
enclosing an area of just over 70 hectares. One place-name attached to a small farm is
relevant: Pen-y-parc (SJ 1665 0028), adjacent to the western corner of the paled enclosure,
but 350m to the south-west is Lower Park, the significance of which is unclear.
The 1764 map reveals that one gate through the pale opened on to a field called Cae Canol on
the east side of the park, a second onto a field or enclosure adjacent to the mansion and a third
further west onto ground called Fron Fraith. The mansion of Vaynor effectively projected into
the park on the south side, with the pale running up to the curtilage on both the west and east.
A keeper’s lodge lay close to the northern line of the pale, directly opposite the mansion, but
of course hidden from view by an intervening ridge. Adjacent to the lodge the later map
shows a near rectangular fenced enclosure, presumably associated with dear rearing.
The park bank survives in woodland to the north-east of the house, coinciding in the main
with what is shown on the 1764 estate map. On the edge of Crane Coppice (at SJ 1801 0072
and see plan above) the bank is c.2m high externally, 1.2m internally and about 4m wide
across the top. Intermittent and often slighter traces of it are also apparent on the north side
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During a survey by one of the writers in 2003 these were the only convincing stretches of pale
bank to be identified though the survey of the park was not comprehensive. A platform
marked the position of the keeper’s lodge, but perhaps not surprisingly there were no remains
of the paled enclosure beside the lodge.
Cadw 1999, 256; Silvester: unpublished field survey 2003; Silvester and Alfrey 2007
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Wynnstay, Ruabon (Flints)
130133 SJ 3058 4256
Cadw state that ‘the first park that is recorded at Wynnstay is the deer park enclosed in 1678
by Sir John Wynn. Of this there is no trace’. The earliest house at Wynnstay is said to have
been built sixty years earlier in 1616.
There are no etymological clues to the location of the deer park, and it is necessary to use
circumstantial cartographic evidence. From the earliest large-scale Ordnance Survey maps
backed up by a demesne map of the 1820s, it might be inferred that the stream known as Nant
Belan lying to the west of Wynnstay Hall offered a suitable perimeter on that side, but there is
no evidence to corroborate this. Though the park is shown, perhaps a little schematically, on
William Williams’ map of c.1720, it is a demesne map of 1741 that offers the best evidence.
While there can be little doubt that the original deer park surrounded the house, its outline
was more irregular than its landscaped successor. The lane leading eastwards from Ruabon
village which formed the north side of the park was considerably more sinuous than the line it
adopts today, on the south and east a similarly irregular lane was reconfigured, and even in
1741 it appears to have undergone changes where it came close to the hall. And on the west
the course of Nant Belan was incorporated in the park which extended further out to a lane
running to Ruabon, although by 1741 there appear to have been plots of ground taken out of
the park.
No outline is offered here as a much more detailed examination of the 1741 map is required to
achieve a reasonably accurate depiction of the 17th-century park. Finally, we might note in
passing that Parc Dininlle was only a short distance to the south-east of Wynnstay.
Cadw 1995, 288; Palmer and Owen 1910, 93; Williams c.1720; Wynnstay Estate: demesne
map 1741; Wynnstay Estate: demesne map 1820s
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Other Parks with insufficient information to locate them
Denbighshire
Brenk(Grengkif) = ?Brynkyffa. In lordship of Ruthin. From Jack (1969) and Berry (1994)
2 parcels of demesne land called parke Creigiock, in vill of Krigiock. From Court of
Augmentations in 1561. Also Pratt 1990/
Galghull From Vinogradoff and Morgan 1914
Denbigh area
Castell Park
Postney Park
Garandrocke Parke
Referred to in 1585 sale of the lordship of Denbigh from Robert, Earl of Leicester to
Elizabeth
(http://www.archive.org/stream/twohundredfiftym00jpea/twohundredfiftym00jpea_djvu.txt)
Flintshire
Parc Llwydcoed (in Hopedale). From Palmer and Owen (1910, 93) where some details.
Breconshire
Hay-on-Wye. Lands in manor of Haye Wallensica: a messuage called Parke y brayne. From
Court of Augmentations in 1561.
Philip Montaine Park, Llanbedr From Redwood 1996/7
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Pratt, D., 1992, Fourteenth-century Marford and Hoseley: a maerdref in transition, Trans
Denbighshire Hist Soc 41, 25-69
Pratt, D and Pratt, S, 2000 A Millennium History of Penley, Wrexham: Bridge Books
Rackham, O., 1986, The History of the Countryside, London: Dent
Rackham, O., 1990, Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape, London: Dent
Redwood, P., 1996/97. Crickhowell Manor in 1587, Brycheiniog 29, 15-38
RCAHMW 1976, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan. Volume I: PreNorman. Part III: The Early Christian Period, Cardiff: HMSO
RCAHMW 1982, An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Glamorgan. Volume III:
Medieval secular monuments. Part II: non-defensive, London: HMSO
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the final report¸ CPAT Report, Welshpool
Silvester, R. J., 2010a. The Welsh Dragon Centre, Chirk, CPAT Report, Welshpool
Silvester, R. J., 2010b. ‘Historical concept to physical reality: forests in the landscape of the
Welsh borderlands, in Langton, J. and Jones, G. (eds) Forests and Chases of Medieval
England and Wales c.1000-c.1500, Oxford: St John’s College, 141-54
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Silvester, R. J. and Alfrey, J, 2007, ‘Vaynor: a landscape and its buildings in thre Severn
Valley’, in Finch, J. and Giles, K. (eds) Estate Landscapes. Design, improvement and power
in the post-medieval landscape, Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 39-55
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Council
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vicinity, Welshpool: CPAT
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London: Centaur Press
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Academy
Welton, A and Welton, J., 2003. The Story of Montgomery, Almeley, Herefordshire: Logaston
Press
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(ed) The Medieval Park. New perspectives, Oxford: Windgather Press, 165-84
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TO DO
Visits
For further information from NLW
Tithe app for Holt Park, Gresford and neighbouring townships
Tithe app.for Henllan: for Llannerch park
Tithe app for Holt
Tithe app for Llanbister for Cwmaran
Tithe apps.for Llansantffraed and Corwen: for Glynyfrdwy park
Tithe app for Mathrafal = check Llangyniew app
Tithe app for Nerquis?
Tithe app for Ruthin/Llanrhudd for Town Park
Tithe app for Llanrahaeadr yng Nghinmeirch
Tithe app.for Henllan: Snodiock/Fox Hall
Tithe map for Stanage (Presteigne) ?1840. Should be Brampton Bryan (18349) which NLW
has
For further information from Denbs RO
Bathafarn 1818 sales DRO DD/GA/1630 19C sketch map of Park Eyton DD/WY/5935
Molewick Park, Denbighshire; commote of Isaled; Will of John Lloyd of M P, 1582
Follow up from tithe map work
Park Caersws – several park names associated with lost farm called Weirglodd. See folder
Cwmaran. Llanbister tithe app names not checked against map
Field visits
Bathafarn (after Berry)
Clocaenog (after Berry)?
Kerry
Llysun
Maesmynan?
To plot
Bathafarn near Ruthin
Bellfountain
Black Park, Chirk;
Cefnllys Park
Clocaenog
Clyro
Dininlle
Emral (two phases)
Glan Aled
Glyn Park, Abenbury
Gwernyfed
Hawarden Big and Little Parks
Holt Castle
Kerry
Llangattock
Llewenni
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Parks Scheduling Enhancement Programme, 2014
Llysun
Maesmynan
Mathrafal??
Parc Eyton??
The Parks, Penley: field names only
Porthamal, Talgarth
Snodiock/Fox Hall??
Stanage
Strata Marcella (from existing workspace for project 1756)
Trevalyn field names
Ty-faenor
Vaynor
Wynnstay
103

Binghamton NY Press Grayscale 1969 a

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