Terrace Walls and Screen at Margam Castle

The terrace walls and screen form an ornate feature to the west garden front of Margam Castle, demonstrating group value as an important element of the castle’s design. The terrace dates to the 18th century and extends to bound both the south garden and the west garden of the castle.

The north screen, a low-tiered wall on a plinth, comprises an open Gothic screen with trefoil-headed lancets, quatrefoils, and Tudor rose finials (some missing). Tall, ornate octagonal piers punctuate the screen, featuring panels of blind trefoil-headed lancets, surmounted by domed traceried caps with large foliate finials. A 20th-century timber gate accesses the northwest angle of the house from the screen, which is divided into five sections, the central three set back. The fifth panel is lower, the wall surmounted by openwork quatrefoils. Curved braces, decorated with highly stylised dragons, sweep down to the terrace parapets.

The west terrace wall is slightly battered and constructed from snecked dressed stone, with ashlar to the upper courses. Projecting parapets rest on a decorated corbel table. Where the north screen joins the terrace, a tall pier is heavily covered in vegetation. The parapets at the base of the central steps are higher and more ornate, featuring latticed openwork panels containing quatrefoils and moulded copings, flanked by square piers with recessed traceried panels and chamfered capping stones. The wide, swept steps, aligned with the centre of the castle, are followed by two further flights of eight steps, separated by landings. Four further sections of terrace walling extend to the south of the steps, featuring plain parapets and rising to octagonal piers with flat capping stones. An ornate panel, with openwork trefoil-headed parapets on a Lombard frieze between decorated piers, projects at the southern end before the terrace returns to the east. A garden boundary wall runs off to the west and becomes a ha-ha.

The south terrace wall is composed of ten sections, separated by piers. The plain parapets rise from a corbel table with saddleback coping and a top roll moulding. The octagonal piers have niches to the front and alternating capping stones—either traceried domes with foliate finials, or flat and heavily moulded. All piers are supported on the front side by large octagonal corbels. Projecting sections are located at the west and east ends; the western projection has a raised openwork parapet on a Lombard frieze with trefoil decoration, flanked by square, diagonally-set piers with moulded cap stones surmounted by domes. The eastward projection is raised to match ground level. From the southeast angle, the terrace wall turns north to join the service buildings of Margam Castle.