enquiries@tywigateway.org.uk Parc a Gerddi yr Esgob, Abergwili, Sir Caerfyrddin SA31 2JG

Bickering Bishops

Last summer, we started collecting the recollections and memories that people had of the park and palace over the decades. These recollections will be kept and shared on the ‘People’s Collection Wales’ website once our volunteers have finished transcribing and translating them. As part of the ’15 Minute Digital Heritage’ project, funded by the National …

A Palace to Call Home

We hope you’re enjoying the historic Parc Yr Esgob-Bishop’s Palace.  Welcome to our website.  Here you can immerse yourself in the history, horticulture and wildlife of our 800 year old Park. Read more about the old Bishop’s Palace here or follow the links on the menu to explore other areas of the Park. And don’t forget to stop by …

Supplies from Afar

We hope you’re enjoying the story of the Bishop’s own private canal!  Welcome to our website.  Here you can immerse yourself in the history, horticulture and wildlife of our 800 year old Park. Read more about the history of the park here or follow the links on the menu to explore other areas of the Park. And don’t forget …

History

The Bishops Park and Gardens is brimming with history.  From the ancient trees which have stood watch here for centuries, to the walled garden which provided exotic food and flowers for the bishop’s table, to the oxbow lake and the shifting landscape of the Tywi Valley flood plain, to the medieval bishops palace which the Park surrounds and the people that lived and worked here.

Looking at the Walled Garden through Historic Maps

In 2017 Dyfed Archaeological Trust undertook an investigation in the walled kitchen garden, generously supported by HLF and the Sabina Sutherland Charitable Trust, and involving substantial work by volunteers, including desk based evaluation and careful excavation and recording on site.  Here’s what they found by looking at the historic maps of the site. You can …

Conservation Management Plan

The Conservation Management Plan (Nicholas Pearson Partnership, August 2016) sets out the issues and opportunities to realise the Trust’s vision for the conservation of Bishop’s Park. Click here to download as a PDF.  

The Abergwili Bishops

The history of the Abergwili Bishops is intriguing- and goes back over 700 years to the founding of a church college by Bishop Thomas Bek in the late thirteenth century.  It was Bek’s college that would eventually become the Bishop’s Palace in the mid sixteenth century, when successive Bishops were major figures in Welsh and …

History of the Park and Gardens

Evidence for the gardens and parkland at Abergwili comes late in the sites history. Indeed, a list of the property owned by the Bishop’s of St David’s written in 1326 doesn’t even mention whether a garden or park existed at Abergwili.