Tredegar House Country Park

Tredegar House Country Park lies in Coedkernew, just outside Newport in Wales. It surrounds Tredegar House, a grand red-brick mansion built in the Restoration style after 1664. The park began as a formal garden in the 1660s, with walled compartments and seven long tree avenues. One of these, Oak Avenue, still crosses the grounds from the house’s north-west wing. Adam Mickle, who had trained under Capability Brown, remodelled the park in the 1790s, removing many avenues and adding a large lake called the Great Pool. By the late 18th century the estate stretched to about 1,000 acres. The Morgan family owned the house and park for more than five centuries until 1951. Sir Charles Morgan leased parts of the estate for mining and built a profitable toll road known as the Golden Mile, which earned £10,000 a year by 1883. In the 1920s a sunken Italianate rose garden was added south of the lake. During the Second World War soldiers stationed here left graffiti on the stable block walls. The park has twice hosted the National Eisteddfod and now hosts a weekly parkrun event with hundreds of runners. Visitors walk through Oak Avenue and beside the Great Pool, where Mickle’s lake still reflects the house. The stable block shows the wartime graffiti, and the orangery stands within its walled garden. A small mount in the Orangery Garden marks one corner of the old parterre. The Italianate rose garden, added in the 1920s, offers a sheltered spot. The park’s remaining 90 acres still show parts of the late 17th-century layout, recognised for their historic interest.