Aberglasney

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Aberglasney

Llangathen, Carmarthenshire SA32 8QH

Visitors' Information Images from a Lost Age

A brief history from the Francis Jones Archives

Aberglasney circa1800

The story of Aberglasney spans many centuries, but, the house’s origins are shrouded in obscurity.

Around 1471 the bard Lewis Glyn Cothi wrote in his ode to the owner Rhydderch ap Rhys of a white painted court, built of dressed stone, surrounded by nine gardens, of orchards, vineyards, and large oak trees. It is one of the oldest descriptions of any house and garden in Wales.

The estate was sold to the Bishop of St Davids around 1600. Bishop Anthony Rudd added to and improved the property and probably built the gatehouse and the cloister garden so that it represented a house not far short of the splendour of his Episcopal palaces.

1710 saw Robert Dyer grandly beginning a fine building campaign that brought the house into line with early Queen Anne fashion. The Dyer period is notable for a son of the house, the poet John Dyer (1699-1757).

In 1727 Dyer published his most famous poem ‘Grongar Hill’ which is the hill and ancient fort overlooking the house.

The Dyers sold up in 1801 to Thomas Philipps, whose ancestors had been of Llangathen. He set about the last major building campaign adding a huge Ionic portico to the entrance front.

His heir at the end of the century was Mrs Marianne Mayhew. Her husband collected and successfully planted a large number of rare specimen trees, some of which still flourish today and add a significant chapter to the tale of Aberglasney. However the greatest arboreal feature of the garden is the yew tunnel. This remarkable creation has been claimed to be over 1,000 years old and, as such, is one of the oldest living garden features in Europe.

Sadly, the estate was then cruelly broken up and suffered from vandalism and fire. For many years the decline of Aberglasney was thought irreversible, however, in 1995, the property was purchased by the Aberglasney Restoration Trust. It was then that the recovery and restoration of the Aberglasney ensemble became possible.

The gardens are still very much in the making. The structures, miles of wall, cloister, gatehouse and the shell of the house, are all now in good condition, the gardens however, although planted, will take time to blossom.

The Trust has continued the tradition in the time-honoured way of generally improving, upgrading, restoring and replanting the grounds. The result will eventually be a first class garden in a hauntingly beautiful and unspoilt pastoral landscape. The distinguished landscape practitioners, Hal Moggridge OBE and Penelope Hobhouse have created gardens which will ultimately become jewels in the UK’s garden crown.

Aberglasney is an exceptional survival of a 16th/17th-century garden of which most other examples survive only as earthworks or in historical documents.

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