Dyffryn Gardens in the Vale of Glamorgan is part of the National Trust. However, it’s not like your average National Trust place, but instead a work in progress. Over the years, it’s had many uses. From a family home to a training centre and now it belongs to the National Trusts. The Vale of Glamorgan Council have spent £1m on a new roof and stonework and a further £1.3m with grants from Heritage Lottery Fund and Cadw to reinstate five feature rooms.
Today, we had the pleasure of visiting Dyffryn Gardens with our five year old twins. Before I go into more information about our visit, I thought I’d tell you a little bit more about the National Trust. They offer four types of membership: Individual, Joint, Family and Lifetime. If you’re thinking about getting a membership, it’s always worth checking online to see what offers are available.
The National Trust is a UK charity that works to protect historic palaces, stately homes, gardens, coastlines, forests and other areas of historical and natural interest, before opening them up to the public.
Before you head into the grounds of Dyffryn Garden you’ll find a children’s play area, along with a cafe that serves hot food such as panini’s and jacket potatoes, to sandwiches and soups.
Our girls loved the children’s play area, and we spent a good 20 minutes in there before heading into the gardens.
When you walk into through the entrance and around the corner, the first thing you see is the house. It’s such a magnificent looking building. You can’t help but feel a little in awe of it.
Reading about it’s history was fascinating. The house was built on the estate in the 16th century and was first home to Admiral Sir Thomas Button. In the 18th century, the Pryce family took ownership, and then the last family to live there were the Cory family in the late 19th century.
I was stunned to learn that for a brief period the house was due to become a hotel. This was never realised and much of the damage you see in the house today was caused by this plan.
I’m so glad that the National Trust has re-opened it’s doors to keep the story of this wonderful house going.
The gardens open at 10am, and the house from 12pm. As such we decided to explore the gardens. There are many different statues dotted around, and lots of nooks and crannies to explore.
I loved the winding stairs through this archway. It felt like we were entering secret garden!
You can also get some magnificent views of the house from all directions.
Our girls loved running around and exploring, as well as looking at the colourful flowers, and even pumpkins that were growing in the gardens.
We explored the great lawn which is home to pretty big fish!
Nestled within the gardens you can find a chest full of garden games to play which we all enjoyed! We also had a game of croquet on the lawn in front of the house.
After exploring more of the gardens, we headed to the cafe for a spot of lunch before heading inside the house.
One of the rooms had some crayons and colouring in sheets for children to colour in which was a nice touch.
The rooms were spectacular.
I especially liked this ceiling.
As you can see my husband was taken with the piano in this room!
We had such a great day out at Dyffryn Gardens. I would definitely recommend a visit. We spent around four hours there in total and will be returning again soon!
This post was written in collaboration with My Voucher Codes.
