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St Donat's Castle Outer Gardens, St Donat's

Pleasure Garden

What is recorded here

St Donat's Castle Outer Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan belong to the Post Medieval period and survive as a pleasure garden rather than a formal castle courtyard. They reveal a time when power displayed itself through delight, shape and visibility instead of defence alone. The gardens may have hosted feast, ceremony or private wonder, while the castle watched from above.
The National Monuments Record of Wales records St Donat's Castle Outer Gardens, St Donat's as Pleasure Garden from the Post Medieval period. The saved point comes from the official national record. Inclusion does not by itself mean that the public may enter the place.
St Donat's Castle, near Barry in South Wales, was originally built in the 13th century by the de Spensers, a powerful Norman family, and later held by the Earls of Glamorgan. The castle and its outer gardens are remembered for their historical significance in Welsh medieval architecture and their transformation in the 19th and 20th centuries by the Guinness family, who restored and expanded the estate into a notable example of Gothic Revival design.

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