Over the last five years, the National Botanic Garden of Wales has been restoring the features of a Regency period landscape, created in the late 18th and early 19th century for William Paxton, in what is now Waun Las National Nature Reserve. This complex ecological, archaeological and engineering project has undertaken the restoration of two lakes, the iconic waterfall, cascades, installation of six new bridges, creation of new paths and the planting of thousands of trees.

The parklands were an early example of Picturesque ideals being utilised in landscape design, characterised by the contrasts that nature can show – at one moment, beautiful tranquillity, and at the next the drama of tumbling water over cascades, a weir, and waterfall. The Garden has access to six of the fifteen paintings by Thomas Hornor who was invited by William Paxton to paint a series of viewpoints throughout the estate in 1815. The intricate details in these paintings of the parkland and lakes have provided the designers and engineers with a wealth of information on which plans for the restoration were based.

This ticket is for this individual session and costs £5, and you may purchase tickets for other individual sessions , or you may purchase a ticket for the entire course of 4 sessions at a cost of £16 via the link here.

Angharad Phillips, Heritage Marketing Officer at the Botanic Garden has worked on this project for the last four years and will be revealing more about this very exciting restoration project.