Teasdale Environmental Design
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National Trust Dyffryn House and Gardens, Vale of Glamorgan Conservation Management Plan prepared by Teasdale Environmental Design 20 August 2014 National Trust Dyffryn House and Gardens, Vale of Glamorgan Conservation Management Plan prepared by Teasdale Environmental Design 5 Langham Place Devenish Lane Wincanton Somerset BA9 9FH Tel 01963 824865 Email [email protected] 20 August 2014 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Dyffryn: brief history of the estate and its landscape context 3. Dyffryn: brief history of people 4. Dyffryn House: brief history 5. Dyffryn Gardens from 1891 onwards 6. Dyffryn House: possible design influences 7. Dyffryn Gardens: possible design influences and design intent 8. Natural Environment and Wildlife 9. Significance 10. Issues and Opportunities: condition and future uses of Dyffryn House 11. Issues and Opportunities: condition and future uses of the Traherne Suite 12. Issues: flooding and surface water management 13. Issues and Opportunities: the parkland 14. Issues and Opportunities: the gardens 15. Dyffryn House, gardens and parkland: vision for the future 16. Gardens and parkland: conservation strategy 17. Conservation Management Policies Appendices Appendix A. Illustrations Appendix B. Chronology Appendix C. Published contemporary descriptions Appendix D. Gazetteer – Dyffryn House Appendix E. Gazetteer – Gardens and Parkland Appendix F. Development of the existing house Appendix G. Significance – stakeholder comments and interviews Appendix H. Biological survey plans Appendix I. Statutory designations and relevant planning policy Appendix J. Cadw register entries Appendix K. Bibliography 1. Introduction 1.1 Background Dyffryn House and Gardens are owned by the Vale of Glamorgan Council but, since 2013, have been leased to and managed by the National Trust. A house has existed on the site since the 17th century when it was built by the Button family, the Lords of the Manor of the medieval Worleton estate. For a while, the old Worleton Manor house and the new house at Dyffryn co-existed but gradually Dyffryn became the manor house and the name was adopted for the estate. The story of Dyffryn exemplifies the fortunes of many South Wales gentry-owned estates. Of medieval origins and supported for centuries by a feudal system of agricultural tenancies and dues, in the mid-18th century the Dyffryn estate passed into the ownership of an industrialist, Thomas Pryce and henceforth was supported by the profits of trade and industry. Substantially re-built in the early 19th century by Pryce’s son-in-law, William Booth Grey, the house took on a Georgian character. It was re-modelled again in the 1890s by John Cory and transformed into the French Second Empire style mansion that is seen today. It was at this point that Dyffryn’s status shifted from being a pleasant, if unremarkable gentleman’s country seat to becoming a property of some splendour: a statement of success for one of the region’s wealthiest businessmen. However, it was John Cory’s talented but modest youngest son, Reginald, who wrought the changes that make Dyffryn, even a hundred years later, still stand out as an exceptional place. Reginald Cory began his adult life by studying law at Cambridge and becoming director in his father’s coal, railway and shipping business. But he quickly developed a passion for horticulture, architectural design and town planning. Clearly an aesthete at heart, he used his share of his family’s wealth to collect beautiful artefacts and by the early years of the 20th century – and evidently with support of his parents – he began developing the gardens of Dyffryn. The Corys appointed Thomas Mawson, initially, to design a garden village to be known as Glyn-Cory and to be built some 2½ miles north of Dyffryn at the outer fringes of the John Cory’s estate. Mawson quickly became involved with Reginald’s embryonic plans for the gardens at Dyffryn itself and was appointed to prepare a master plan. Cory and Mawson developed a liking and respect for each other’s skills and the emerging plan was the product of their collaborative relationship. The result was the creation of a garden with a strong structure driven by Mawson’s style of formal garden planning, tempered by Reginald Cory’s enthusiasm to create numerous imaginative but idiosyncratic display spaces for his broad range of plant collections and favourites. To describe the gardens as merely an excellent example of Edwardian garden design is to understate their significance. What makes Dyffryn so outstanding is not only the scale, variety and sheer curiosity of the designed gardens but the role that their creator, Reginald Cory, played in promoting horticultural excellence at the highest levels. He achieved this not only through his gardens but also through his wide-ranging, often anonymous philanthropy and his self- effacing hard work and activities in the interests of horticulture, channelled through – among others - the Royal Horticultural Society, Linnaean Society, National Dahlia Society, Cambridge University Botanic Garden and through his numerous contacts with the great and the good of the horticultural world of the time. Following the death of Reginald Cory and his sister Florence – who owned Dyffryn after their parents’ death – the house and gardens of Dyffryn passed into the management control of Glamorgan County Council and then, through local government reorganisations, came to be managed and later owned by the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Used as a training centre and then as a conference centre, the condition of the mansion fluctuated. In the early 1980s Dyffryn, Glamorganshire: Conservation Management Plan FINAL. 20 August 2014 Chapter 1. Introduction Page 1 of 5 it was refurbished and the service ranges were modified and extended to add a conference dining room and a delegate accommodation suite. Unfortunately, the success of this venture was short-lived. The mansion and conference centre closed and became redundant in the mid-1990s and suffered a rapid decline. The gardens were similarly at the mercy of the fluctuating economic climate for the twenty years from the late 1970s to ‘90s. Despite this, the significance of the property was recognised in the 1990s when Dyffryn House was listed by Cadw in 1992 as Grade II* and the gardens were registered as Grade I. Since the late 1990s, several substantial funding grants, particularly from the Heritage Lottery Fund, have assisted with rescuing and restoring significant components of the mansion and the gardens, pulling them back from the brink of irredeemable decline. However, much still remains to be done to restore substantial and significant parts of the gardens, parklands and house interiors. To this end, the National Trust entered a lease agreement with the Vale of Glamorgan Council in 2012 and assumed management control of the property in 2013 with the aims of addressing the backlog of repairs, protecting and enhancing the property, and enabling local and wider communities to rediscover its value. 1.2 Current status of care, management and presentation Today, the Dyffryn estate occupies approximately 90 acres and comprises the mansion, related outbuildings, the gardens, an arboretum and parkland. Following major repairs to the building fabric of the mansion including a new roof, and restoration of a number of the most important reception rooms within, in 2013 the house was re-opened to the public for the first time for 17 years. It is now opened daily throughout the year and is manned by an enthusiastic team of volunteers who steward the rooms, arrange topical exhibitions and share in furthering the research about the history of the property. Although unfurnished, the showrooms are impressive and popular with the visiting public. However, behind the scenes, much of the mansion and its linked service buildings remain closed to the public and are in poor, even dilapidated condition and still need major internal repairs. The restoration and subsequent care of the gardens has been similarly uneven. A substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled two phases of activity. The first, in the late 1990s, concentrated on restoring the ornamental main gardens around the mansion and the gardens designed by the Mawson/Cory collaboration. The second phase continued this work by restoring the productive gardens and rebuilding the largest glasshouse, but also provided new visitor facilities – a reception, shop, tea room and toilets - and a new educational centre in part of the former estate yard. These projects have been successful and popular with visitors but, as in the house, so also in the gardens; the more peripheral areas have never been restored and attract only limited maintenance. The garden team is led by a Head Gardener, supported by the equivalent of eight gardeners, including a recently-recruited specialist in plant propagation. The gardeners are also helped by between 40 and 50 volunteers, who individually give an average of 2½ hours per week. The primary focus of the team is on maintaining the arrival areas, formal approaches to the mansion, main ornamental gardens and kitchen gardens. Dyffryn, Glamorganshire: Conservation Management Plan FINAL. 20 August 2014 Chapter 1. Introduction Page 2 of 5 The challenge for the future of Dyffryn over the coming years will be to: continue to address the backlog of repairs to the mansion and its associated service buildings; extend visitor access within the mansion to other interesting and attractive rooms as they are restored; find new uses for a significant proportion of the mansion which, without furnishing and significant decorations, would be of limited interest to visitors and so could be used in different but appropriate ways; conserve and restore other significant parts of the gardens created by Reginald Cory that are now degraded or lost; restore a parkland character to all of the former parkland areas within the management of the National Trust; and strengthen the awareness and understanding of significance of Dyffryn as the home of Reginald Cory, an important horticultural benefactor and collector of the early 20th century.