THIS neglected wasteland at the heart of a former Gwent hospital site has lain uncultivated and unloved for years.

But now it is being earmarked for a new lease of life in tandem with the building of the long-awaited Specialist and Critical Care Centre (SCC)to treat the area's sickest patients.

One of the most prominent features at the site of the former Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital, the walled garden that was once an integral part of life at the Victorian former mansion house is the subject of restoration plans.

The charity Gwent Arts in Health (GARTH) is hoping to build an archive of material recording the history of the garden - which would have had a key role providing food, and a venue for activity and restfulness - that can be displayed in the future.

Plans are being developed to provide a walkway through the walled garden from Llanfrechfa Grange house, a Grade Two-listed, Elizabethan-style mansion built in the mid-19th Century, to the SCCC, a £241 million, 550-bed hospital, building work on which is set to begin in February next year. The centre is scheduled to open its doors to patients in mid-2019.

Walkway plans will will involve restoring the garden's existing surrounding external walls, and installing lighting, drainage and a path, as well as creating an environment that brings back something of its former function.

Some Aneurin Bevan University Health Board Health Board staff have formed a small working group to explore the possibility of forming an independent community group to take on the restoration project.

It has also worked with the SCCC project contractor Laing O’Rourke to look at future options for the walled garden, through which discussions the artist's impression shown here was drawn up.

Anyone with an interesting story to tell about the walled garden at Llanfrechfa Grange Hospital, may e-mail karen.jones22@wales.nhs.uk