Historical
Overview
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Welcome to
The American Gardens.
The American Gardens:
Statement of Significance.
 The American
Gardens, hidden away on a quiet
Welsh hillside on the outskirts of Pontypool,
reveal a surprise of rich ornamental greenery tucked away within natural oak
woodland. On entering the site via a mysterious old carriage drive, the
visitor discovers a world apart, where towering Californian redwoods and
eccentric Monkey puzzles rise majestically out of a rich undergrowth of
tangled Rhododendrons and laurels. The impression created by these fine trees
- now in their prime - can only have been imagined by the Victorians who
planted them. The surprise is all the greater because these unusual Gardens
are situated within the Welsh valleys; a region dominated by beautiful and
dramatic landscapes, small towns and local communities, and harsh, despoiling
industrial activity. The Gardens are an intriguing oasis, contrasting with
the wider landscape.
 The Hanbury family, creators of the American
Gardens, first came to South Wales
to establish an ironworks in the 16th century and became influential industrialists
in the locality of Pontypool. Over the
following 200 years or so, as the family’s industrial interests expanded and
their fortunes grew, they acquired extensive land holdings within the Welsh
valleys and beyond. In the late 17th century, like many wealthy
industrialists of the time, Capel Hanbury built a mansion, Pontypool House,
close to his works but also located to enjoy the beauty of the natural
landscape of the nearby Brecon Beacons.
Around
this, extensive formal gardens were created, with a deer park beyond. The American Gardens
do not merely represent the indulgence of a successful industrialist’s taste
for beauty following the gardening fashions of the day. They also symbolize a
piece of community history and an act of social conscience. The wonderful
exotic trees were planted during a period of energetic Victorian plant
collecting, when wealthy land-owners throughout Britain took pleasure in
embellishing natural landscapes with recently-introduced exotic plants to
create a heightened drama. But work on the Gardens began in 1841, during a
time of local depression. When confronted with the need to lay off workers
from his ironworks, Capel Hanbury Leigh provided alternative employment
through his garden project, extending the pleasure grounds associated with
Pontypool House. A snaking carriage drive already led from the big house,
through the heart of the Gardens site and on towards a hill-top folly to the
north-east. Capel Hanbury Leigh’s new and glamorous planting created a piece
of theatre along the way, heightening the natural drama of the secluded
woodland landscape. Today’s dense undergrowth conceals the ambitiousness of
the design. The centrepiece to the Gardens - a sinuous ornamental pond of
over 100m in length - is of a piece with the carriage drive: the drive runs
along the top of a long dam which follows the hillside contours. At the very
heart of the woodland, a woodman’s lodge built in a highly picturesque
‘Hansel and Gretel’ style, heightens the sense of being lost in a romantic,
fairy-tale landscape.
The American Gardens of Penygarn may not have been
large or exceptional or ahead of their time, but they typify a style of
ornamental woodland gardening that was popular in the 1850s. Importantly,
much of what was created then, although now dilapidated, still survives and
has the scope to be restored with a good degree of accuracy. The Rhododendron
varieties found growing in the Gardens are now rare and merit protection and
conservation for their historic and horticultural value.
Although initially created as a private pleasure ground and then used
later as a beat for shoots, the Gardens were always known and frequently
visited by local people. Louisa Hanbury, wife of John Capel Hanbury, used to
give tea parties by the pond in the 1890s.
But through the first half of the 20th century the gardens quietly
went to sleep and, after the Second World War, started to become neglected.
However, local people have continued to know and visit them, by permission,
up until the present day. Many local residents have fond memories of going to
the gardens as children, often with school parties, or on more clandestine
excursions of their own. The teachers of Penygarn Community Primary School
continue to take groups of pupils into the Gardens regularly to watch and
study the wildlife, marvel at the dramatic trees and enjoy the romantic
‘Hansel and Gretal’ atmosphere of the Rustic Lodge.
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