‘A perfect paradise’
In the first of two articles, David Robinson traces the evolution of Margam Park in Port Talbot from Cistercian abbey to Tudor house and public country park
Margam Park, Neath Port Talbot, part I A country park managed by Neath Port Talbot Council In the first of two articles exploring architectural treasures in a Welsh park, David Robinson considers the transition from Cistercian abbey to Tudor and Restoration house
NICHOLAS CARLISLE, compiler of an early 19th-century topographical dictionary of Wales, observed that Margam ‘is situate very pleasingly under the shelter of a lofty Hill and luxuriant Woods’. Almost 200 years later, visitors to the 850 acres now designated as Margam Country Park will find his description remains perfectly apt.
Nestling below its wooded hill, Margam looks across the broad coastal platform on the east side of Swansea Bay. Surprisingly, the immediate tranquillity of the place is barely stirred by the beating industry of nearby Port Talbot. The park itself, together with its mountainous hinterland, is a landscape of outstanding historical importance, featuring an impressive range of archaeological, sculptural and architectural features spanning several millennia.
Of particular note, Margam was the site of a medieval Cistercian abbey, one of the largest in Wales. Following its suppression in the 1530s, much of the nave of the abbey church survived, whereas parts of the monastic buildings were adapted as a secular residence for the Mansels, one of the leading gentry families in the new Tudor county
of Glamorgan. As we shall see next week, the Mansel house was dismantled at the end of the 18th century, when the Margam estate became a ‘pleasure ground’, dominated by a vast neo-classical orangery. As the wheel of fortune turned once again, in the 1830s, an impressive Picturesque house—margam Park—was built at the site by the young Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
In looking for evidence of early human activity in this deeply layered historic landscape, Carlisle’s ‘lofty Hill’ is the place to begin. Margam Mountain is peppered with Bronze Age funerary cairns and barrows and there are also several hill forts in the vicinity. One of the hill forts—mynydd y Castell— directly overlooks the Talbot house.
In pre-norman centuries, it’s very likely that Margam was the site of an important church or monastery. This is evidenced by the superb collection of early Christian memorial stones and crosses from the surrounding area, which are now housed within Cadw’s Margam Stones Museum. The detailed, wheel-headed Conbelin Cross is especially striking (Fig 3). This great 9th- or 10thcentury slab would surely not have looked out of place in a monastic enclosure.
The Norman invaders who swept into the area during the first years of the 12th century would have shown scant regard for the religious traditions of a native Welsh monastery. At any event, Margam was to become the site of a Cistercian abbey, established under the patronage of Robert, Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan (d. 1147).
The founding community of white-robed monks arrived on November 23, 1147, having been despatched from Clairvaux in France. In fact, Margam was one of a mere handful of British abbeys directly colonised by this celebrated Cistercian mother house during the abbacy of St Bernard (1115−53), the driving force behind the astonishing expansion of the order at large.
Earl Robert’s bequest comprised ‘all the land between the Kenfig and Afan rivers, from the brow of the mountains to the sea’. As further grants were made by Welsh as well as Norman patrons, Margam gradually built up a thriving mixed agricultural economy. Its estates were worked in the early years by a small army of lay brothers.
Construction of the abbey church had begun soon after the foundation. The blueprint for its basic layout was almost certainly the so-called ‘Bernardine plan’, found widely across the Clairvaux family of houses at large. The eastern arm of this ‘Bernardine’ church is likely to have featured a short square-ended presbytery, shallow transepts, and a crossing with no defining piers or
a tower overhead. Documents reveal that a precious cross on the high altar housed various relics—including a fragment of the True Cross—on which Margam’s patrons vowed to abide by their promises.
The aisled nave was eventually completed by about 1175−80, with six of its original eight bays retained at the time of the suppression to serve as the parish church (Fig 4). Now sitting on the western boundary of the country park, St Mary’s is an astonishing survival. Nowhere else in Britain can one find a more perfect articulation of that severe architectural austerity so typical of the Cistercian order during its formative years.
The two-storey elevations could scarcely be less embellished. Simple rectangular piers support plain round-headed arches of two orders. The cut-stone edges of several clerestory windows can be seen above, but there is no evidence for a high vault. At the west front (heavily restored in the early 19th century), the central doorway and upper windows retain their Romanesque character.
Margam’s monastic buildings were located south of the church, arranged around the usual open cloister. We can say little about the earliest structures, but it is clear that the east range—housing the chapterhouse, the monks’ day room, and their dormitory above—was extensively remodelled soon after 1200. By far the most prominent survival of this campaign is the impressive polygonal chapterhouse.
The prime mover behind its construction was surely Abbot Gilbert (1203−13), appointed after a period of unrest at the house by visitors from Clairvaux. In the finished scheme, three richly decorated arches from the cloister led into a vestibule within the east range proper (Fig 1) and, from there, a doorway opened into the freestanding chapterhouse itself. It was a breathtakingly unusual composition in a Cistercian context (Fig 2).
The room was lit by nine pointed windows, reflecting each facet of the polygonal
exterior. At their daily chapter meetings, the monks would have sat on benches arranged around the circular internal wall. At the centre, a single pier supported the 24 ribs of an elaborate stone vault. Amazingly, this survived intact until 1799.
Building continued elsewhere in the abbey complex over the course of much of the 13th century. Most notably, before 1250, the original ‘Bernardine’ east end of the church was replaced with a substantial aisled presbytery of five bays. As part of the process, elaborate piers were introduced at the crossing, presumably to support a tower. Indeed, perhaps the construction of a tower explains the reference to a ‘master of the works of the new church’ as late as 1307.
There is some evidence to suggest that the covered walks around the cloister were refurbished in the early 14th century and, in a grant of 1349, reference was made to ‘the noble and magnificent structure of the walls continually made in the… monastery’.
In the later 14th and early 15th centuries, the monastic community was rocked by a series of setbacks. It evidently recovered, and praise was eventually heaped on Margam by a succession of enthusiastic Welsh bards. In the early 16th century, for example, one wrote of the abbey’s ‘beautiful belfry’ (which is known to have housed six bells) and, under the last abbot, Lewis Thomas, Margam was said to be ‘the fairest place on earth—a perfect paradise’.
Even so, in August 1536, Abbot Thomas and his nine remaining monks were obliged to surrender their house to Sir Rice Mansel (d. 1559). The latter hailed from Oxwich on the Gower Peninsula and is a perfect example of one of the new men of the Tudor age. Following military service in Ireland, Mansel was granted various royal offices in Wales, but the suppression of the monasteries now offered him far richer pickings.
Early in 1537, Mansel leapt at the chance to acquire an initial lease on the site of Margam Abbey. Then, between 1540 and 1557, he managed to raise enormous sums totalling almost £2,500. In four instalments, he bought not only the abbey site and its buildings, but also the greater part of the entire monastic estate. The resulting landed wealth dramatically escalated Mansel to a position of pre-eminence within Glamorgan society.
Now on the western boundary of the country park, St Mary’s is an astonishing survival
Oxwich was far from abandoned, but, henceforth, Margam became the principal focus of Mansel’s attention. No later than 1552, he began building a substantial house over parts of the former monastic complex. Subsequently, as if to crown his social and political standing, in 1557, Mansel was licensed to keep a personal retinue of 50 gentlemen or yeomen and, a year later, he was given permission to create a hunting park of 100 acres at his new estate.
Over the next 200 years, Margam was occupied by at least six generations of Mansel’s direct male descendants. They married well, occasionally served Glamorgan as High
Sheriff or as MP and most were buried in St Mary’s parish church (Fig 6). Periodically, they also improved the house and its gardens.
Fortunately, something of the architectural character of the Mansel house is captured in two remarkable paintings (now in the National Museum Cardiff). These bird’s-eye views, from the north and south sides, probably date from the end of the 17th century (Fig 7). They reveal a long building —orientated east to west—which is clearly of several constructional phases.
At the eastern end, Sir Rice’s initial scheme may well have occupied the site of the former abbot’s lodging. Here, he pressed into use
a medieval gatehouse as the entrance to a courtyard fronting his new residence. The main range of the house itself stood directly opposite the gatehouse, with south-projecting wings forming the sides of the courtyard.
Given the style of a number of windows seen in the two paintings, it was presumably Sir Rice’s son, Sir Edward (d. 1585), or his grandson, Sir Thomas (d. 1631), who made various improvements before the end of the 16th century. These works doubtless contributed to the ‘faire and sumptious house’ mentioned in the 1590s, when Margam was held by Sir Thomas.
By this time, in any case, all three ranges were of two main storeys. The attics above were lit by gabled dormers. Inventories of the 1740s indicate a ‘Great Hall’, doubtless at ground level, whereas the ‘Dining Room’, ‘Drawing Room’, ‘Great Chamber’ and ‘Library’ were perhaps somewhere on the first floor. There was a balustraded prospect tower located on the north side of the house.
The status of the Mansels was further enhanced when Sir Thomas was created a baronet in 1611. Sir Edward Mansel (d. 1706), the 4th Baronet—described as ‘a person of great interest and integrity’—was unquestionably a leading figure in Glamorgan during the second half of the 17th century.
More specifically, in the years after the Restoration, he was responsible for a significant transformation of the family house.
In the Tudor part of the building, for example, it must have been Sir Edward who introduced the large transomed windows seen at first-floor level. Of greater note, however, were his two successive extensions west of the original house. Our attention is drawn, in particular, to the more elaborate of these, situated on the outer side.
Notably, the three central bays of its sevenbay southern façade were framed by giant pilasters and a pediment. In all, it looks to have been an important piece of early Palladianism in south Wales. Interest is further heightened when we appreciate that it was built primarily as a grand stable, a reminder (were it needed) of the great importance of the horse to men of rank at this time.
Sir Edward Mansel looks to have introduced an important piece of early Palladianism to south Wales
All of this work by Sir Edward was certainly in place before 1684, when Thomas Dineley made a sketch of Margam from the south side. Dineley was accompanying Henry Somerset, 1st Duke of Beaufort, on his progress through Wales in that year.
Beaufort stayed at Margam (with ‘a numerous train of Gentry’) and dined with Sir Edward in his elegant new ‘Summer Banquettinghouse’, which appears in the bird’s-eye-views on a terrace east of the house. Dineley records that it was ‘built after ye Italian… [with] regular simitrie’, and that it was paved with local black, red and white ‘marble’, and filled with sculpture and good Dutch paintings. Its façade survives in the park, as the Temple of the Four Seasons (Fig 5).
Sir Edward’s son, Sir Thomas Mansel (d. 1723), was recognised as a man of considerable charm, wit and fashion, and also something of a rake. He was certainly a longstanding Tory MP and, in 1711, was granted a peerage as Baron Mansel of Margam. Ten years later, in retirement, he invited Francis Smith of Warwick to design a new house. We shall consider what became of this idea in next week’s article. Acknowledgements: Thomas MethuenCampbell, Oliver Fairclough and Friends of Margam Park