The National Museum of Wales owns two fine oil paintings of Margam House, viewed from the north and the south, completed sometime around the turn of the 17th century. A closer look reveals a substantial garden pavilion, known as the Banqueting House, at a little distance from the house. Margam’s mansion has been remodelled a number of times, and the Banqueting House too has seen some changes: it was relocated in the 19th century and survives today as the facade of a very imposing  cottage.

The Banqueting House at Margam was probably built by Sir Edward Mansell, 4th baronet (1637-1706), and was still new and fashionable enough to make a big impression when the Duke of Beaufort and his train stayed at Margam on the Duke’s Progress through Wales in 1684. Thomas Dineley accompanied the Duke and kept an illustrated journal: he records that on Saturday 16 August the party were conducted to the ‘Summer Banquetting-house’ which he described as symmetrical and ‘after ye Italian’ with ‘excellent sculpture’. Inside an ‘infinity of Dutch and other paintings [made] a lustre not to be imagined’. The floor was of marble from Mansell’s own quarries in Wales, and was richly designed in ‘black, red, mixt and white’ stone. The Banqueting House has long been attributed to Inigo Jones, but there seems little evidence, and Dineley makes no mention of an architect.

Bishop Pococke, the constant traveller and diarist, reached Margam in September 1756, and saw the ‘very fine summer house’. He described the interiors as having a fine walnut staircase with balusters carved as Corinthian pillars, an inlaid floor, and a ‘wainscot carved and gilt’. He also admired the floor of the entrance which was paved with ‘very beautiful’ marble from the ‘quarries of Gower’.

The Banqueting House was probably taken down in the late 18th century when Thomas Mansel Talbot (1747-1813) demolished the old mansion, although he continued to maintain and develop the park and gardens as a pleasure ground to visit from his new home at Penrice. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890) built the Margam Castle that we see today a generation later, and it is he who is credited with re-erecting the facade in its current position at the entrance to the walled garden in around 1837 (neither cottage nor walled garden appear on an estate map of 1814). The rather smart cottage became home to the gardener, and over time the building became known as the Temple of the Four Seasons, after the statues that were installed later in the century (although there is an argument that the statues are not actually representations of the seasons).

A number of 19th century gardening magazines featured the gardens at Margam, but it is curious that the temple was seldom noted, although visitors did tend to be sidetracked by the ancient Chapter House and the late 18th century orangery, which measured over 100m in length. There is a rare mention of the structure when the ‘front of the gardener’s house’ was admired in 1861.

The ‘interesting fragment’, with the statues in situ, was noted in 1909, but by then it seems to have been allowed to decline: old postcards show it covered with climbing plants and slowly disappearing into the surrounding shrubbery. It is no surprise to learn that it became known locally as Ivy Cottage.

Margam was purchased by the local authority in the 1970s, and opened to the public as a country park. In 2011 experts began to look for a sustainable use for the grade I listed building as part of the Heritage Lottery Funded restoration of the park. It was decided to restore the cottage as a holiday let, and project architect John Malaiperuman drew up plans. The historic front was repaired and conserved, and the Victorian cottage behind it renovated using traditional materials.

Margam Country Park is fascinating and full of interest, especially the amazing orangery – which is a tale for another day. Meanwhile, you can learn more here http://www.margamcountrypark.co.uk/15996

For more on the holiday let see https://www.holidaycottages.co.uk/cottage/14865-ivy-cottage-at-margam-country-park

Being a flâneuse is harder than it sounds, and occasionally one needs a little help from one’s friends. So introducing the first of a series of occasional posts by guest writers. Susan Kellerman, aka The Couth Companion, recounts the history of a garden ornament built for puddings and panoramas.

A typical feature of the grander formal gardens in Elizabethan times was the banqueting house. Such buildings are a rarity nowadays as most Elizabethan gardens have disappeared, having fallen victim to changing fashion. The late 16th century/early 17th century Banqueting House at Weston Hall is not only a rare surviving example, it is also a very handsome one- indeed it is listed Grade I. Frustrating, then, that so little documentary evidence has been found about its origins and subsequent history: no indication of architect or mason, no accounts connected with its construction or maintenance and no record of early use, despite determined trawling through the Weston papers 

The Banqueting House (also referred to as a summerhouse or casino) was probably built around 1600 by Sir Malger Vavasour and his wife Joan (née Savile). Originally at the corner of a small walled garden, it has fine mullioned and transomed windows and is decorated with roundels containing the Vavasour cock and the Savile owl. The windows were originally fitted with stained glass featuring the arms of the principal local families, attributed to Bernard Dinninckhof (or Dinninghof). After several of the windows were accidentally destroyed the surviving glass was removed by William Vavasour in the early years of the 19th century to embellish ‘the windows of his hall’. Some of the armorial glass was probably reused in the windows of All Saints, Weston, when it was restored in 1819.

There is no access from the ground floor of the summerhouse to the upper floors. Both of the principal rooms, on the first and second floors, are entered through a substantial protruding stair turret at the rear of the building. These rooms have fireplaces, which indicates that use of the Banqueting House was not restricted to summer days. The spiral stone staircase continues on up to the roof of the building, where external steps lead to a square gazebo, or lookout tower, which crowns the turret. This has windows extending the full width of each wall, giving panoramic views over the gardens and parkland.

Banqueting houses were usually situated close to the main house, within a formal garden, although some were to be found on the roof of the main house itself. Our 21st century understanding of the word ‘banquet’ may be misleading here: the banqueting house was a place for small, informal parties, and typically where guests would withdraw for the pudding course of a meal, perhaps after a gentle turn around the garden. This was a more private, intimate space, a delightful contrast to the grandeur of the main house and its dining hall. The architecture tended to reflect the sweet dishes themselves: highly decorated, fanciful, whimsical.

As an accompaniment to the dessert, the gazebo would offer a prospect: views across the pleasure grounds and estate. Together with the expensive sweet delicacies, this panorama testified to the wealth and status of the host, an important element of entertaining.

As is so often the case with follies and garden buildings, there is a legend that a tunnel links the Banqueting House with the mansion. The story is seldom true, but who knows what’s behind the blocked up arch in the lower room…

For visiting Weston Hall see https://westonhallestate.co.uk