Plas Cadnant is an historic country estate in

Menai Bridge Menai Bridge ( cy, Porthaethwy; usually referred to colloquially as Y Borth) is a town and community on the Isle of Anglesey in north-west Wales. It overlooks the Menai Strait and lies by the Menai Suspension Bridge, built in 1826 by Thomas T ...

on the

Isle of Anglesey Anglesey (; cy, (Ynys) Môn ) is an island off the north-west coast of Wales. It forms a principal area known as the Isle of Anglesey, that includes Holy Island across the narrow Cymyran Strait and some islets and skerries. Anglesey island, ...

. The buildings were

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

listed by Cadw in 1967. The Georgian house dates from 1803 when it was built by John Price as his family home. The listed buildings also include Cadnant Lodge, at the entrance to the estate; a range of domestic outbuildings (which are thought to pre-date the Georgian house) and an icehouse.

History

The land at Plas Cadnant began as a farm in the 16th century, and by the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

had become a country estate. The estate deteriorated during the second half of the twentieth century until it was purchased in 1990 by Anthony Tavernor who began renovations on the buildings and grounds. While his intentions were to open the estate as a business, he describes the renovation work as "a labour of love". Tavernor aimed to restore the gardens in the

picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

ideal, aiming for an early 1800s style. By 2006 Tavernor had opened a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

service on the grounds via a number of self-catering cottages. Previously only open by appointment, the gardens were opened to the public in 2011, and a tea room and visitor centre were built. Plas cadnant secret valley

Gardens

The estate's gardens were developed in the 1800s by the family who owned the land but had been left to grow wild since the 1940s. In the 1990s renovations began to uncover and restore the overgrown areas, and in 2010 Anthony Tavernor was honoured by the

Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales The Campaign for the Protection of Rural Wales (CPRW) ( cy, Ymgyrch Diogelu Cymru Wledig (YDCW)), originally named the Council for the Preservation of Rural Wales, is a charity in Wales that aims to secure the protection and enhancement of the co ...

for his work. The garden consists of three sections: a

walled garden A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders. In temperate ...

containing a water pool, a "secret valley" garden in which waterfalls and a river can be found, and an upper

woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shrub ...

. In December 2015, during heavy flooding, water damaged large parts of the garden including the destruction of an original 200-year-old wall and a number of rare plants. Repairs began on the affected areas of the garden in January 2016.

References

External links

*{{Official, www.plascadnant.co.uk Menai Bridge Grade II listed buildings in Anglesey Country houses in Anglesey