The Nelson Garden, at no.18 Monnow Street in Monmouth (nprn 403363), is a rare survival of an eighteenth-century town garden. Its layout survives more or less intact and it contains an important and unusual early nineteenth-century garden pavilion. The garden has strong associations with Lord Nelson who visited in 1802.
The garden was probably created at the same time as the house was built in the late eighteenth century. The space had a history of use as a real tennis court in the seventeenth century and a bowling green in the early eighteenth.

At the time of Nelson's visit to Monmouth, on 18 August 1802, no.18 was lived in by Colonel Lindsay, town clerk of Monmouth, who entertained Nelson, Sir William and Emma Hamilton to tea and coffee in the summerhouse ('that charming retreat') in his garden. The present pavilion, or summerhouse, is a small, open-fronted building of brick and wood, set against the east boundary wall, on a platform about 5m long (23102). It dates from about 1840, replacing its 1802 predecessor. The seat, with arms, in which Nelson sat was saved and installed in the centre of the new bench seat.

The garden is bounded by walls of brick, in places modern brick, in places part rubble stone, rising to about 3.5–3.8m high. Modern iron railings cut off the main garden area from the narrow strip to the west. The north boundary wall is a hot wall heated by horizontal flues within the wall. The entrance is in the south-east corner. Most of the garden is taken up with a level lawn, laid out informally with a few specimen trees and shrubs. A large cypress tree stood until 2004, when it was felled, near the west side, with ‘1802’ set out in dwarf box at its foot. A gravel path leads around the perimeter of the garden. To the west of the entrance the path, edged with brick and clipped box hedging, slopes up to a wider terrace along the top of the boundary wall, from which there is a fine view of Chippenham, a neighbouring historic garden (266091).

Source:
Cadw 2007: Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest, additional and revised entries part 1, 42-4 (ref: PGW(Gt)59(MON).

RCAHMW, 4 July 2022