The Halsewell estate appears in Domesday, but the present house was not built until the seventeenth century, at around the same time that it came into the ownership of the Tynte family, through the marriage of Jane Halsewell and John Tynte of Chelvey. Their son Halsewell Tynte was created 1st Baronet in 1674.

The park was developed in 1745-85 by Sir Charles Kemys Tynte, 5th Baronet (1710-85), who was the third son of Sir John Tynte, 2nd Baronet, and Jane Kemys, the daughter and heir of Sir Charles Kemys, 3rd Baronet of Cefn Mably. Sir Charles took his mother's name, Kemys, in 1735, and succeeded his brother as 5th Baronet in 1740. He served as MP (Tory) for Monmouthshire in 1745-47, and Somerset in 1747-74.

In c1765 Sir Charles commissioned Thomas Prowse (c1708-67) to build the Temple of Harmony within the park. At a cost of £400, this was a miniature version of the first-century BC so-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome. Two years later Robert Adam was commissioned to design an interior decorative scheme for the temple. By 1990 the temple was in a ruinous state, but enough survived to show that Adam's designs were executed with alterations, including plasterwork by the Bristol plasterer Thomas Stocking, and a sculpture-filled niche flanked by Spalatro order columns. This has all been restored. The original sculpture from this scheme was a Terpsichore holding a psaltery, which has been attributed to John Walsh (fl 1757-77), and is now in the Somerset County Museum, Taunton. There is now a replica statue inside the temple.

In 2004 the Halsewell estate was developed as a wedding venue, but this venture failed, and the house was recently repossessed by the mortgagee, Citi Private Banking. The park is open to the public on Sundays during the summer months.

Literature:
A.T. Bolton, The architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1922, Volume II, Index pp. 58, 90; G. Jackson-Stops, 'Arcadia under the plough: the garden at Halsewell, Somerset', Country Life, 9 February 1989, pp. 82-87; D. King, The complete works of Robert & James Adam and unbuilt Adam, 2001, Volume I, p. 336; History of Parliament online: 'Kemys Tynte, Sir Charles, 5th Bt. (1710-85), of Halswell, nr. Bridgewater, Som. And Cefn Mably, Glam.'

Frances Sands, 2013