Llantarnam Abbey, to the east of Cwmbran, stands on the site of a medieval Cistercian monastery (founded 1179, NPRNs 307898; 45089). It retains a near-complete layout of park (700243) and garden of the 1830s and a walled kitchen garden (700244). It is laid out on a rectangular bastioned plan that may be as early as the seventeenth century in origin.

They lie to the south, east and west of the house. The structure, some of the layout, and some of the planting of the gardens survive. [Ist edn 6-inch: MAZE shown]
To the west of the house the drive enters the rectangular forecourt under a Gothic archway.
The garden on the west and south is enclosed by a low stone wall and outer dry moat, with bastions in the south-west and south-east corners, each supporting a life-sized seventeenth-century stone statue, and with low decorative cast iron gates in the middle of each side. Further smaller statues survived here at least until the early twentieth century.

The formal layout of paths in the garden on the south side has gone, except the central path, along with a fountain originally in the middle of the garden here. A wellingtonia flanking the central path survives. A conservatory on the south side of the stable court, present in 1946, has now gone. Beyond the enclosed garden area, to the east (south and east of the kitchen garden) was the informal area, the shrubbery and an area with walks and a small lake. Some specimen trees remain here. A picturesque pavilion with a turret called the 'Monk's Cell' (410524) survives on the north side of the lake which has now been drained and filled in to form a grass field; a disused stone fountain of a scallop shell held up by dolphins is marrooned in the middle. Further north was a maze, now gone. To the south of the 'Monk's Cell' are the remains of a grotto, said to have had tunnels, which became, in the early twentieth century, the repository of remains of monks’ tombs. A life-sized stone figure of a praying monk from within it is now in the kitchen garden (700244).

Source:
Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales: Gwent, 80-82 (ref: PGW (Gt)25(TOR)).
Additional notes: C.S.Briggs.

RCAHMW, 13 June 2022

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