Lydney Park
Lydney Park is a 17th-century country estate surrounding Lydney House, located at Lydney in the Forest of Dean district in Gloucestershire, England. It is known for its gardens and Roman temple complex.
House and gardens
Lydney Park was bought in 1719 by Benjamin Bathurst, son of the Cofferer of the Household to Queen Anne, and has remained in the family since then. The house was originally close to the main road, with a large deer park behind it.
In 1875, Rev. William Hiley Bathurst built a new house in the centre of the deer park, with views over the River Severn. The new house was built by C. H. Howell, with a formal garden and shrubberies. The old house was demolished, apart from the buildings now occupied by the Taurus Crafts centre. Rev. Bathurst's grandson Charles, later Viscount Bledisloe, made some further changes to the garden before the house became used in the Second World War, first to house the Dutch royal family and then a girls' school.[1]
The current garden was developed after 1950 by the second Viscount Bledisloe and his family. There is a woodland garden running along a secluded valley, planted with magnolias, rhododendrons, azaleas and other flowering shrubs. There is a paved terrace above and formal gardens which are popular in the Spring, when the daffodils bloom.
The gardens are private land, and are open to the public on certain days depending on time of year. The house also has a museum containing findings from the Roman site and artefacts from New Zealand collected by the first Viscount Bledisloe.
Roman temple
The area has an early British Iron Age promontory fort–type hill fort, known as Lydney Camp, covering 4.5 acres. The Romans used the site, until the early 4th century, for the extraction of iron ore. Open-cast iron mines, or scowles, and tunnels still exist throughout the hill.
In the late 4th century, the Romans built a Romano-Celtic temple[2] to Nodens, a Celtic divinity who is reflected by the later figures of Nuada and Nudd/Lludd in Irish and Welsh mythology respectively. Lludd's name survives in the placename of Lydney. Several model dog images have been found there, indicating it was a healing shrine. The structure was a cross between a basilica and the usual Romano-Celtic style temple. The walls of the sanctuary or cella were arched colonnades until a fault in the rock below caused the almost total collapse of the temple. It was rebuilt with solid walls to the cella. There was a fish-covered mosaic with an inscription that referred to 'Victorinus the Interpreter', probably an interpreter of dreams. The temple was accompanied by a large courtyard pilgrims' hostel and elaborate bath suite or thermae.
Tolkien associations
The Roman remains were excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1920s; the author of The Lord of the Rings novel, J. R. R. Tolkien, then a well-known philologist, was asked by Wheeler to write a paper, The Name 'Nodens', which was included as an appendix to the excavation report.
Local folklore claims that, after the Romans' departure, the local people began to believe the ruins were the home to dwarves, hobgoblins or little people.
References
- Wheeler, R.E.M. & T.V. (1932) Report on the excavation of the prehistoric, Roman and post-Roman site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire. Oxford.
Footnotes
- ↑ Lydney Park - Spring Gardens and Roman Remains, local guidebook (undated)
- ↑ 51°43′15″N 2°33′29″W / 51.7209°N 2.5580°W
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lydney Park. |
- Lydney Park Estate - Home Page
- http://www.aboutbritain.com/lydneyparkgardens.htm
- http://www.fweb.org.uk/dean/visitor/tlydpark.htm
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/films/tolkien.shtml
- http://www.roman-britain.org/places/lydney.htm
Coordinates: 51°43′15″N 2°33′12″W / 51.7207°N 2.5532°W