Tuesday along with a small number of Carmarthen County Councillors, (only 11 out of 72) attended Golden Grove Farm which is run by College Sir Gar to attend a training seminar

I understand the purpose of the seminar was to raise awareness of the Carmarthenshire Local Biodiversity Action Plan and what it is achieving and also to highlight the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and what this means in terms of the Council’s activities and operations.

http://www.llandeilo.org/pl_gelli.php

On arrival we walked up to the River bridge an we had a talk on the river and its impact on the farm land and the wildlife in and around the area during the seminar we had the chance to look at lots of old maps to look at how the landscape has changed over the years, one of the maps showed the old Ford which has long since been lost and replaced with a bridge and another map had individual trees marked and recorded.

below is an appraisal of the area that i pulled off the county councils web pages. 

Golden Grove/Gelli Aur is located some three miles south-west of Llandeilo, within the Towy Valley, itself designated as a Special Landscape Area, and comprises of a loose collection of some thirty three dwellings on the gently slope rising to the south of the River Towy.

The scattered lateral form of the village is defined by the road which links the B4300 road, which runs the length of the Towy Valley at this point, between Llandeilo and Carmarthen, and the A476 on the traverse side of the glacial ridge and which separates the Towy Valley from the Gwendraeth and Loughor Valleys.

The nucleus of the village centres around St Michael's Church and the Church Hall (formerly the Church School) which are set back from a small triangular grassed area which borders onto the road. Both are Grade II Listed Buildings. The church is a fine example of a small church built in the decorated style of the Gothic Revival. Built in 1846-8 by Sir George Gilbert Scott as an estate church for John Frederick Campell, first Earl of Cawdor (1790 - 1860) it replaces one of 1617 in the same location. Architecturally, the church includes a Nave with a small timber belfry and spire near the west end, a slightly lower chancel, and a porch and transept and vestry on the north side. It is reputed that the timber belfry was copied from that of the earlier church. Apart from the porch, the exterior walls of the church are constructed from axe dressed informally coursed sandstone overlaid by slates on the roof, door dressings, arches, tracery, mullions and cills in local grey limestone.

The church is set within a stone walled churchyard with stile and lytchgate. The circular shape of the walled enclosure suggests that it was established in pre-mediaeval times.

The lytchgate also probably predates the rebuilt church, the extreme simplicity of the style suggests that it predates the time when the Golden Grove buildings were commissioned by the first Earl of Cawdor who inherited the estate in 1821. It is cubical in form, with a pyramid slate roof, edged with decorative roof tiling with rendered hips and a plain lead covered apex. The way through is barrel vaulted and plastered. The entrance is gated at the centre with a pair of modern timber gates, incorporating vertical iron bars taken from an earlier period.

The Church Hall, is also a distinctive building, fronting onto the tarmaced shared area with the Church. Until its closure in 1982 it served as the Church School. It now serves as a parish hall.

Designed for Lord Cawdor by Henry Ashton (a former assistant of Sir Jeffry Wyatville), it is built in the neo-Tudor style echoing that of Golden Grove Mansion which was considered appropriate for superior educational buildings in the early Victorian period; a model school design, and dates from 1848.

The building described in its original format would have consisted of a two storey master's house between a two windows boys' school room to the left and a one window school room for girls to the right, both of which are single storey.

Constructed from rubble common masonry, the walls are inserted with limestone ashlar dressings including large quoins. The roof covering is natural slate, set in regular courses capped by a tiled ridge covering. The two storey section of the master's house has three light mullion windows, serving both storeys at the front; similar but taller windows carried up into through-eaves gables to the school rooms form the construction of the building on both front and rear elevations. All windows are fitted with quarry glazing. Above each of the school room front windows is a scroll tablet with the inscription "Fear God".

To the west of the former school building and still within the open area is sited a Gilbert Scot K6 type, square, red, telephone kiosk dating from 1952, an undoubted asset to any conservation area, whilst on the opposite side of the road is to be found, in a recess in the Golden Grove Park wall, a horse trough and fountain. The water spout is set in a round-headed alcove with an informal pediment, carrying the inscription "Drink and be thankful 1872" topped by a coroneted finial.

To the south of the Church, separated by a field, fronted by a short distance of well maintained hedgerow, along the road frontage behind a gated entrance, lies another fine property known as Awelaur, which was the former vicarage.

Dating from 1879 it is a fine example of a late Victorian parsonage in the patronage of an aristocratic family and in association with their seat, and forms a dominant element in the village of Golden Grove. Again it is listed as a Grade II building. A two storey building and an attic with Tudor features, it is built of local grey limestone given a pecked finish and laid in snecked courses. The slate roof is decorated with scalloped, red, ridge tiles. Large and prominent red, brick chimney stacks dominate the roofscape.

The building is exceptionally well detailed on all elevations, the stonework includes mullion and transom windows, weathered string courses, coped gables on moulded and double weathered skewstones.

Within the curtilage of the property and detached from the property is to be found the coach house and servants' latrine. Both contemporary with the construction of the former vicarage C1879, they are well preserved; the servants' latrine close to the servants' wing of the house, set behind a screen wall to conceal it from the garden, is an unusual survival of a detached latrine for domestic servants.

Both buildings are built of local limestone masonry overlaid with a slate roof and red ridge tiles, and are listed in their own right.

On the opposite side of the road to the vicarage, facing the street, is April Cottage. Designed as four cottages of unequal size in the mid/late 19^th Century, but now occupied as a single house, they were built as almshouses for Sarah Mary Campbell, who became the second Countess Cawdor in 1800. The building is H-plan by design, with gables facing the street. It is constructed of local gritstone ashlar in irregular courses, covered by a tiled roof. The gables are decorated with ornamental bargeboards with finials. The main entrance to the dwelling is centrally located via a small porch which contains a narrow roundheaded outer doorway, above which a lozenge tile displaying the coronated monogram - SMC (Sarah Mary Campbell) is located.

On either side of the entrance porch are two windows with mullion and lattice glazing. The wings to the front contain similar four light canted bay windows.

The cottage is separated from the roadway by a low stone wall, topped by a round topped interlinking fence.

Further up and on the same side of the road, set back at the entrance gates to Golden Grove, lies West Lodge, a single storey house, built in the picturesque manner of a gate lodge design. Exceptionally built in yellow brick, it is first mentioned in the Census of 1881, and subsequently enlarged at the turn of the century.

Originally having an L-shaped design, a lower range has been added to the rear. The design incorporates a large slate roof with metal ridge, octagonal brick chimneys, scalloped timber bargeboards with timber finials.

The entrance way incorporates a four-post porch and central gablet, beneath a low-pitched slate roof, with fixed lights on either side of the door, with a row of turned balusters beneath.

At the front, facing into the estate access road, is a small canted bay window in the gable.

The building is set in its own grounds, the boundaries to the front and side facing onto the estate access road and main village road, are delineated by neat clipped hedges.

Immediately adjacent to West Lodge are the gate piers at the entrance to Golden Grove Mansion.

All three are again listed.

To the south of the road intersection at this point, on the opposite of the approach road to the village, on its out skirts, lies another property, Waunfedwen, distinctive in the sense that it does not display any of the characteristics of other dwellings in the immediate surrounding area.

Set back from the road, behind a cultivated garden, it comprises of a double fronted main unit, faced with rubble stone in irregular courses with brick arched heads and quoins both to the two over two sliding box sash windows and also the central doorway.

The roof is overlaid with natural, grey slates, with modest overhang to plain verges on projecting purlin ends, and includes modest red brick end chimneys. A subordinate structure to the left and attached to the main house, has been incorporated into the dwelling. The front elevation although again faced with rubble stonework has been painted. The elevation contains a door set off centre, and three windows of varying sizes and styles. The side elevation is however rendered and contains metal casement windows.

Returning to the bottom part of the village, immediately adjacent to the old school house lies the property known as Drws Y Coed. Constructed of red sandstone, laid in irregular courses, the principal building, a two storey, double fronted unit, has two outlaying single storey annexes attached.

The roof is covered with slate with generous overhangs to the verges, with brick end chimneys.

Through eaves gablet roof projections surmount two of the three upper storey windows on the front elevation. The front doorway is centrally located beneath a lean-to porch, with slated roof supported by brick side walls.

The five matching windows are double hung sliding sash box windows, two over two with rounded heads, surmounted by arched brick headers.

The annexes, former outhouses, constructed and faced with random rubble masonry and overlaid with slates on the roof have been incorporated into the living accommodation of the main dwelling. The road frontage boundary is defined, in part, by a low stone wall with iron railings, whilst the remainder is formed from a well maintained hedge which extends the remaining length of the property.

Sweeping around the corner, and on the opposite side of the road, set within its own grounds, lies Keepers Cottage. Again constructed from local stone with a slate covered roof, the original windows of the dwelling have been replaced by new upvc windows. Nevertheless, the basic proportions are maintained.

Below and behind Drws Y Coed, a recent addition to the village, are the replacement buildings at New Park Farm named Llys Parc Newydd, which also includes the incorporation of the former farmhouse within a new housing development. Developed along and replicating the footprint of the former agricultural buildings which once stood here, the dwellings loosely echo their appearance and design. Finished in a mixture of reclaimed stone from the demolished buildings and render, and roof covered in slates, centred around a courtyard, the scheme sites comfortably within the landscape when viewed from the approach from the north. The existing landscape of trees and hedges have been supplemented by additional landscaping and planting, which in time, will further contribute to the assimilation of the buildings into the setting.

The retention of the hedgerow, shielding its approach road from the street, reinforces the distinctive character of the village. The road through the village is bound and enclosed by neat, well maintained hedges, interspersed with low boundary walls and railings, which tightly hug the road verges, unifying the buildings within the village into a cohesive entity. Trees along the roadside and with the curtilages of the individual dwellings previously identified, together with the churchyard, and the deciduous woodlands which are juxtaposed along the main route and form a beautiful backcloth to views of the village to the south and west.

The unity and continuity achieved through the existing planting and stonewalls, and the architectural individuality is indeed a hallmark of Golden Grove/Gelli Aur village.

The unique character of the village, should of course be sufficient to warrant its designation as a Conservation Area, in its own right. There is however another dimension to the setting of the village, unrivalled in Carmarthenshire, that of the Golden Grove estate, which includes Golden Grove Mansion and Country Park.

Golden Grove estate once sprawled across 50,000 acres of Carmarthenshire and was once one of the most elegant and impressive of all Towy Valley estates. The estate was established by the Vaughans in the fifteen hundreds and were one of Carmarthenshire's most illustrious families for over 300 years, until the estate passed to the Cawdors at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who lived there up until the Second World War. In 1951, Carmarthenshire College established an agricultural college at the mansion, whilst in 1979, the former Dyfed County Council set up the country park in its immediate grounds.

Today all that remains of the Vaughans' legacy is the deer park and treasury of trees. The trees on the estate, with their constant changing colours, may have influenced the name of the estate, and their product was a particularly valuable source of income and wealth for the estate. Cut trees would be floated down the River Towy to Carmarthen, for export onward, where there was a "Golden Grove Quay".

The former farmhouse mansion of the Vaughans' was replaced by the current mansion, which was sited above the former site, assuming an elevated position further up the valley slope, and stands proudly overlooking the Towy Valley.

A Grade II Listed Building, built in Tudor style with Scottish Baronial features and constructed from Llangyndeirn "black marble", the mansion is a notable example of the work of Sir Jeffry Wyatville. With its steeply pitch slate roofs in graded courses behind parapets and prominent tower near the south west corner, the only feature which is clearly visible from the valley bottom below, as it peeps over the woodland in the foreground, the mansion is remarkable for the quality and consistency of its Tudor Baronial detailing, both externally and internally.

Apart from the tower, the main house is nearly symmetrical, with a double gabled elevation to the south and north. The entrance elevation contains a centrally located, tall and deeply projecting porte cochére.

To the south-west of the main block are the service wings, planned around a courtyard. Again repeating the baronial style of architecture but to a lesser degree, in accordance with their domestic hierarchy.

To the north and east of the mansion and service wings is located the raised terrace behind a retaining wall and parapet. The retaining wall is in rock-faced limestone, battened at about a 70º angle, whilst the parapet is constructed from similar limestone masonry to that of the house.

The terrace is laid out with walks and parterres, at the centre of which is an ornamental pond with a rounded everted kerb.

Located to the west of the service wing at Golden Grove Mansion, to which it is linked by yards and a covered way, lies the stable block, again designed by Sir Jeffry Wyatville, and which was the last domestic element to be constructed. The rectangular block, formed around an internal courtyard linked to the service wing, is built in a simplified neo-Tudor style and is a fine example of formal symmetrical planning.

To the south of the buildings on the entrance axis of the mansion lies the garden and arboretum, which included other listed features, the garden seat and stairs, and are contemporary with the house.

Both the mansion and the gardens are set within the Golden Grove Country Park, which is run by Carmarthenshire County Council, which includes parkland to either side of this area.

Private forestry forms both the backdrop and foreground to the Country Park, whilst to the north-west of the mansion in an area between the mansion and the B4300, on the valley floor, lies the walled garden to the former farmhouse mansion of the Vaughans'.

The day wasn't a total waste for me, because the officers talked about land management which included hedge row management and i was quick to discuss a project that i could use in Hendy, recently in this blog I spoke about how I had been down to the Hendy Football club helping to fix the fencing to keep the cattle out, the officers stated they could come up with a variety of tree planting scheme that would benefit the club by keeping the cattle out and help the wildlife, so we are now exploring a new hedge laying project which might win some grant funding.