In 1802 Horatio Nelson, a national hero following his victories at the Nile and Copenhagen, passed through Monmouth in the company of Sir William and Lady Emma Hamilton. They visited the Naval Temple at The Kymin and a grand dinner was given in his honour at the Beaufort Arms, after which they retired to the nearby garden of Colonel Lindsay for the rest of the evening
An 1881 survey of the Nelson Garden. In earlier times it had been the location of a real tennis court, then a bowling green and, later still, an orchard
Dwarf box commemorates the year of the visit
The entry to the garden, via a short tunnel, with remnants of the medieval town wall to the left of the doorway
An engraving of the original Memorial Pavilion, which was built in the mid 19th Century
Continual and necessary restoration work means that today little of the pavilion's original fabric survives
Conversely, the somewhat unusual Lord Nelson Seat by all accounts incorporates the original upon which Nelson actually sat
The statue of Britannia is a copy of one that sits atop the Naval Temple at the Kymin, a hill just outside Monmouth
From 1797, in acknowledgment of great naval victories such as Nelson's, Britannia came to be depicted as holding a trident rather than a spear
The plaque on the statue's plinth
Copies of the plaques displayed at the Naval Temple at the Kymin in recognition of victorious British admirals
The garden contains a rare surviving example of a hot wall. Hot air from an oven travelled through a system of horizontal flues, helping to extend the growing season of fruit trees espaliered along the warm brickwork
Fruit grown in the Nelson Garden
Nelson sweet peas and Emma Hamilton roses, grown in the Nelson Garden
In the 1990s the Nelson Society, the Monmouth Archaeological Society and the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust began the restoration of the now-dilapidated garden.
Here a blue plaque is unveiled in 2009
The civic society plaque
