The trust formerly known as….
07/04/2026
By Admin2
Trustees and staff at Parc yr Esgob (Bishop’s Park) will be using the name “Parc yr Esgob Trust” as the public working name for the charity from April 2026, although The Tywi Gateway Trust remains our legally constituted title. Betsan Caldwell, Trust chair explained “We wanted to improve name recognition of Parc yr Esgob and the …
Tag: garden history
Walled Garden
Posted: 09/11/2021 by Caroline Welch
Find out more about our new Walled Garden Restoration Project which started in July 2025. Please note that the Walled Garden is not open to the public at the moment due to the restoration work. We will announce future public open days here. The half-acre Walled Garden, dating from at least the 1790s, is Parc …
Category: Explore the Park, Walled Garden Tags: apple tree, garden history, pear tree, Walled Garden, wildlife
The Ha-ha
Posted: 09/11/2021 by Caroline Welch
What is a ha-ha? It’s actually a formal landscape feature, commonly used in the 18th century, comprising of a long terrace wall and ditch. Bishop’s Park ha-ha runs between Y Parc and Y Waun Fawr – and is one of the longest in the UK . By keeping out the grazing animals but not interrupting …
Category: Explore the Park, The Ha-Ha Tags: garden history, Ha-ha, wildlife
Exciting Discoveries in the Walled Garden!
Posted: 09/11/2021 by Caroline Welch
Some weeks ago, while fencing off the foundations of the old greenhouses in the walled garden, our landscape contractors ‘lost’ a fence post in the surrounding ground. As they knocked it in, it disappeared in a void underneath.
Category: Latest News Tags: garden history, history, Walled Garden
Jenkinson Garden
Posted: 19/08/2021 by Caroline Welch
Greeting visitors to Bishop’s Park is one of the site’s major highlights – the Jenkinson Garden. This very special place has been designed to pay homage to the formal garden created here during Bishop John Jenkinson’s tenure between 1825 and 1840. This was the last time in its history the site underwent major landscaping works, …
Category: Explore the Park, Jenkinson Garden Tags: apple tree, beech, Bishop Jenkinson, flowers, garden history, pear tree, pollinators, spring bulbs, spring flowers
History
Posted: 12/06/2021 by Admin
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.
Category: Featured Tabs, History Tags: bishops, Bishops Palace, garden history, history
Looking at the Walled Garden through Historic Maps
Posted: 15/03/2018 by Admin
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 …
Category: History Tags: archaeology, garden history, history, maps, Walled Garden
Conservation Management Plan
Posted: 06/02/2016 by Admin
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.
Category: History Tags: garden history, history
Conservation and Archaeology
Posted: 22/12/2015 by Admin
Download the Walled Garden Archaeological Evaluation report carried out by Dyfed Archaeological Trust in March 2017 in PDF format. Download the Historic Landscape Survey carried out by Cambria Archaeology in 2005 in PDF format. Download the Standing Building Recording & Archaeological Evaluation carried out by DAT Archaeological Services in 2019 in PDF format. …
Category: Uncategorized Tags: archaeology, garden history, Walled Garden
History of the Park and Gardens
Posted: 06/10/2015 by Admin
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.
Category: Garden History, History Tags: Bishops Pond, garden history, history, Walled Garden