THIS is Newport’s Belle Vue Park, a gem of a park.

The land was given by Viscount Tredegar and cost £20,000 to lay it out, it was opened in 1894. In the ‘then’ picture stands the imposing pavilion and two glasshouses.

At one time the one glasshouse contained tropical plants including a massive fern looking like the antlers of a moose. There was also a bandstand on the terrace where the young men of Newport used to parade trying to catch the eye of the young girls who were viewing the men.

Sadly the glasshouses and bandstand were abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin, the plants died when the heating was turned off and the windows became broken. In later years a lottery grant was obtained and a new bandstand and glasshouses built but the one glasshouse is now a café and the other is a meeting room.

The grant stipulated that the park be returned to the condition it was in when first opened, new trees planted to replace those that had died and mature but ‘foreign’ trees cut down. There was and still is two fine bowling rinks.

Dave Woolven, Newport

Your picture today is a very old shot of Belle Vue Park. It shows that very pleasant meandering path from the Pavilion, around the top part of the park, past the bowling club and ending at the top gate by the Tennis Court.

Very pleasurable walk cascading with memories of the past from kids playing in the 50s, courting in my teens, playing tennis in my 20s to taking my daughters to play there in the 70s. What a tremendous asset this Park is for Newport, providing a safe refuge for leisure and meditation.

Jim Dyer, Newport

The Now and Then picture is Belle Vue park, Newport. My grandparents lived in Jones Street and my grandfather used to regularly walk me around the park as a child. Nowadays I live close to the cathedral and I still very often take a walk in the same park.

I remember that the large pavilion building used to house tea-rooms, my godmother Mrs Meredith was employed there in the 1940s. That old pavilion has now been altered at great cost and the bandstand restored. I think after the bend on the right of the picture you have the bowling green and also the tennis courts, which I made great use of in the 1960s.

Reverend Graham Moore,  Newport