Orielton, a much-modified seventeenth-century house (nprn 22512, now Orielton Field Centre), is located about 3km west of Pembroke.

The house lies in parkland (700067) across which there are discrete, former garden areas. The immediate environs of the house, shown in an engraving of 1822, were laid out to rolling lawn. The area has been much altered and some of the lawn, between the house and the lily pond, is now rough pasture having been enclosed for grazing. Further west, towards the house, the grass is mown and there are some benches and tables. To the north of the mown area is a small avenue of eight acers (maples), running east - west. At the eastern end are three mature rhododendrons and a magnolia just to their north. South of the acers is a sundial (22515). It consists of a single bulbous pillar, standing to about 1 m, on top of which is the plate and gnomon. An icehouse, under the lawn near the house, is approached by an open alleyway. It is a tunnel type with a low stone vault and has been filled in.

Just under 200m to the south-east of the mansion is the site of the American Gardens. These are referred to in the sale details of 1828, recorded on the tithe survey as being a garden of some 5.2 acres, and believed to have been created on the site of the first mansion. It is a rectangular enclosure surrounded by walls that still stand mostly to nearly 4m, though whether deliberately built to shelter exotic plants or date from a previous enclosure is not known. In the mid nineteenth century it was described as 'a singularly beautiful pleasure garden of about four acres, walled around, in American and French gardening, planted with the choicest flowering and other shrubs in great profusion with gravelled and grassed walks and to the south is a raised terrace with rustic summer house'. The garden area is now much overgrown and lost, the ground covered in ferns, ivy, brambles and trees. No trace of this 'singularly beautiful' garden or of the rustic summer house has been found. The garden lies near to the so-called banqueting tower (22609).

Within the park are the remains of a Japanese garden, created in 1919 and, north-east of the mansion, is a walled kitchen garden (700068).

Sources:
Cadw 2002: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, 262-6 (ref: PGW(Dy)38(PEM).
Ordnance Survey first & second-edition 25-inch maps: sheets Pembrokeshire XXXIX.16 & XLII.4 (1861 & 1906).
Sylvia P. Beaman and Susan Roaf, The Ice Houses of Britain, p.530.

RCAHMW, 31 March 2022

Site Record

Orielton Garden, Hundleton, Pembroke