News from our partners: Building walls and teams at Plas Newydd
News from our partners Denbighshire County Council
A team of volunteers have been busy learning new traditional skills and putting them to use in Plas Newydd. The Dell is the Ladies of Llangollen’s naturalistic garden at and some of the 200-year-old revetment walls are crumbling and falling into disrepair.
The Our Picturesque Landscape which is National Lottery Heritage Funded is leading on a five-year restoration of the Dell which has started this autumn (2019) with repairing many of the crumbling stone walls holding up the banks leading into the Dell. Led by experienced Richard Jones of RJ Countryside Skills, the volunteers have learnt the skills involved in removing a crumbling wall and how to rebuild it to last another two hundred years. As part of the work a time capsule has been buried in the wall for someone to find long into the future detailing who repaired the wall and why.
Enthusiastic team of dry stone wallers at Plas Newydd
This project has received funding through the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
Other projects within the restoration are the creation of stepping stones across the babbling Afon Cyflymen which flows through the Dell, repairing the steps leading up to the summer house, creating a bog garden, extra seating and replacing the existing handrail with something more in keeping with the garden as it would have been two hundred years ago. If you would like to get involved by volunteering with the restoration, please get in touch with the team on 01824 706163 or email our.picturesque.landscape@denbighshire.gov.uk
Paula Wilding and Dave Smith, volunteers, said:-
“This has provided an interesting feature, leading visitors down from the historic formal heritage garden into the ladies’ naturalistic planting within the Dell.”
Further information
Our Picturesque Landscape Project centres on the landscape of the Dee Valley and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site. It takes the theme of inspirational journeys that have been, and continue to be, a feature of the area which is cut by the canal, Telford’s A5 and the River Dee. Visitors have drawn inspiration from this beautiful valley in art and poetry since the 18th century and it continues to draw tourists in search of the sublime.
This landscape is under growing pressure with high numbers of visitors drawn to what are often our most fragile sites. The communities on its doorstep, born from the industrial endeavours that shaped it, are now less connected to the benefits the landscape offers. The five year project will invest in the resilience of key visitor sites and engage communities in its appreciation and management while reinterpreting this rich landscape for a new generation.
Projects have been developed under 3 themes -Conserving the Picturesque Landscape, Accessing the Picturesque Landscape and People and the Picturesque.
Our Picturesque Landscape Project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. It is a partnership project developed by the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal World Heritage Site, Denbighshire County Council, Wrexham County Borough Council, Shropshire Council, The Canal & River Trust, Natural Resources Wales, Cadw, Cadwyn Clwyd, Aqueducks (Friends of the World Heritage Site) and the Friends of the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley.
http://www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk/our-picturesque-landscape-project/
Follow us on Facebook @Clwydian Range and Dee Valley
National Lottery Heritage Fund
Using money raised by the National Lottery, we inspire, lead and resource the UK’s heritage to create positive and lasting change for people and communities, now and in the future. www.HeritageFund.org.uk.
Follow @HeritageFundUK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and use #NationalLotteryHeritageFund
enthusiastic team of dry stone wallers.
