While both pious and evangelical, Robert and Frances Raikes also had a firm sense of their place in the world and were not shy about showing it off. The young couple would have chosen the well-known landscape architect William A. Nesfield as much for his talents as for his extensive society connections. By then in his mid-50s, Nesfield went to work on the 11 acres of grounds with an attention to detail which was typical of the Victorian era.

Nesfield is best known for his contributions to Kew Gardens and Regent's Park in London, Holkham Hall in Norfolk, Castle Howard in Yorkshire and more than 200 other country estates. By the 1850s, sheer landscape acreage was not longer a status symbol so Nesfield worked hard at putting elaborate ideas into small spaces such as formal gardens, parterres, terraces, steps and statuary. At Treberfydd, he stuck to his signature themes of elegant parterres, vistas and sweeping lawns.

Nesfield's designs for the gardens are still in the house. These show that the pious young Raikes succumbed to a bit of ostentation by allowing Nesfield to display their initials on the new parterres. Later generations felt this sort of planting was too costly to maintain (as well as being too flamboyant for their tastes) and the parterres were dug out in the 1920s.

 

However, a number of Nesfield's features remain, including his Long Walk - it stretches from the croquet lawn through to walled kitchen garden back towards the house. Further, many of the fine trees which still flourish on the estate - including three towering Sequoias imported from North America and a mammoth Cedar of Lebanon - were planted by Nesfield.