PGW(Gt)19(NPT)

Bellevue Park  

II  

01/02/2022  

Designated  

Newport  

Stow Hill  

330668  

187160  

Gardens, Parks and Urban Spaces  

Urban, public, late nineteenth-century landscape park.  

1893  

Bellevue Park is registered for its historic interest as a good example of a late nineteenth-century public park remaining more or less intact and having historical associations with the influential garden designer Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933). It also has group value with the listed pavilion and conservatories, rustic tea house, terracing, park lodges, entrance gates and boundary walls. Bellevue Park is an enclosed 14 hectare (35 acre) public park in Newport. Created on land donated by Lord Tredegar to alleviate unemployment, the park was designed by T.H Mawson, and opened in 1894. It is informally laid out and is characterised by sweeping walks with grass and ornamental trees dating from before the park’s creation to the present day. At its centre is a small valley water garden with drinking fountains, rockwork, streams, pools and cascades. To the west of the water garden is a two-storey tea pavilion (LB: 16955) built in 1910 by Mawson. The pavilion is built from stone with a red tiled roof, and flanked by conservatories. Below it is a series of terraces built out over the slope on massive stone revetment walls (LB:16956). A rustic tea house is located to the sw of the pavilion (LB:23136). A bowling green was also added later. The park is bounded by stone walls and its main entrances are on the north and south sides, each with wrought iron gates and half-timbered lodges, also by Mawson and built 1893-94 (LB:23134 and 23135). The site includes a Gorsedd circle built for the 1897 Eisteddfod. The park was restored in the early 2000s with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund. Setting: Located approximately 1km to the southwest of Newport city centre and mostly surrounded by housing. Significant View: From the terraces giving views over the river Usk and the Bristol Channel. Sources: Cadw 1994: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales, Gwent (ref: PGW(Gt)19). Ordnance Survey second edition 25-inch map of Monmouthshire, XXXIII, sheet 4 (1902).