Launch of a new era for garden
THE National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire is celebrating the official launch of its Regency Restoration project after a year of record visitor numbers and huge approval ratings for its new attraction.
The multi-award-winning newlyrestored landscape, which opened to the public in March 2021, has helped push the attraction’s visitor figure close to 200,000 – the largest annual attendance since the the garden opened in May 2000.
The £6.7 million project was announced in September 2014 and this signalled the start of a two-year development phase followed by four years of construction and delivery of the largest project the garden has ever undertaken.
The work has restored features of a
Regency period landscape, created in the late 18th and early 19th centuries for Sir William Paxton, in what is now Waun Las National Nature Reserve. It includes two new lakes, bridges, dams, cascades, a waterfall and an extensive network of paths all set in 300 acres of wooded parkland.
The new area has already been singled out for special awards.
In March it was presented with the internationally prestigious Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) People’s Choice Award.
The project was also awarded the ICE Cymru Alun Griffiths Award for Community Engagement and was a runner-up in the Georgian Group awards. The garden’s interim director, Catrin Evans said: “This massive undertaking has been a supreme team effort, kick-started by an amazing fundraising campaign, huge community involvement every step of the way and fabulous work by volunteers, staff, designers, ecologists, local craftspeople, architects, engineers and many more.
“This carefully created integration of botany, landscape, heritage and agriculture brings benefits for the visiting public as well as the wider tourism industry.”
Andrew White, director of The National Lottery Heritage Fund in Wales, said: “Heritage can be anything from the past that we value and want to pass on to future generations. This is an outstanding example of the past brought back to life for us to learn from yesterday, enjoy today and pass on to tomorrow.
“The project is more than a landscape; it’s a habitat, a historic narrative, a place to relax and a testament to the hard work and dedication of staff and volunteers over a number of years.”
The original owners of the estate where the botanic garden now stands were the Middleton family who began to lay out formal gardens from the late 16th Century.
It was not until the estate was bought in 1789 by MP for Carmarthen, Sir William Paxton, that the grounds really came into their own.
Protege of world-famous landscape architect Capability Brown, Samuel Lapidge was commissioned to design the landscape and gardens to include an innovative water park with water flowing around the estate linked by a network of dams, sluices, bridges and cascades.
Using the source material of specially-commissioned watercolours of the estate in 1815, the project has now transformed the 300-acre area into a woodland and water wonder.
The official launch of the project took place on Friday.