WORK is well under way on restoring the 147-year-old town park’s historic gates.

Abergavenny Town Council posted a picture of the ongoing work on the Bailey Park gates, which were removed for a major restoration in November.

The work costing nearly £40,000 is taking place at a foundry in Brecon which has worked on similar projects for Royalty, and the post said: “Good progress is being made with the restoration.”

Last year, a council spokesperson said: “The main gates and ornate railings are an important part of Abergavenny’s heritage and are Grade II listed.

Over the last century, the gates have been restored but not for many decades so sadly, the main ornate gates have deteriorated and are now in desperate need of repair.

“There are a lot of missing details such as floral medallions and finials that will need recasting before the gates can be stripped down and repainted.

“Mindful of the state of the gates and the suspension of the Lottery funding, Abergavenny Town Council agreed to allocate funding to enable the gates and associated decorative railings to be repaired in this financial year.

“Abergavenny Rotary, Friends of Bailey Park and Abergavenny Civic Society will jointly be contributing £9,000 and Monmouthshire County Council will be undertaking the necessary tree works in this area.

“The cost of this restoration work is just short of £40,000. The work will be undertaken by a Brecon-based company whose work is mainly focussed on historic gates and railings in London.

“The gates will be removed and transported to their workshop for restoration and the decorative railings will also be removed in sections and restored at the workshop.

“By taking them off site, the painted finish will be better as they can be painted indoors rather than left to the vagaries of a Welsh winter.

The remainder of the railings and gates, of which there is a lot, will need repainting at some point in the future, but budgets do not allow this to happen at this time.

“The priority has been the main gates which will look fantastic when professionally restored and will complement other investment in this well used and much-loved park.”

Shirley Barnfield, Chair of the Friends of Bailey Park, said at the time: “This is very good news and what a difference this is going to make to the park and to the community.

“The future of the park will be safe and Abergavenny can be proud again of Bailey

Park.”

The ‘people’s park’ was developed and opened to the public by a fabulously wealthy local ironmaster in 1884 on the former Priory Meadow, which the Chronicle reported at the time under the headline ‘The Munificent gift Of Mr Crawshay Bailey’. The land was leased for 21 years at the end of 1883 to the ironmaster, who formed a management committee and employed a park keeper.

A Mr Johnson, who was responsible for the planning and design of Bailey Park, told councillors at the time: ““The principal entrance gates will be from the Hereford-road side, and will be composed of two ornamental gates hung from massive piers, with side gates for the entrance of foot passengers, the central entrance being sufficiently wide to accommodate a four-in-hand with ease.

“On the left hand a lodge will be erected in the Gothic style. Shrubs will be planted inside the fences, and then a half-mile course will encircle the ground.”

“Inside this will be a bicycle track, football, cricket, and other grounds, an ornamental pond, a grandstand and pavilion, a bandstand, and the necessary offices to make the park as complete as possible.”

The park gates, which have been green for decades, are being restored in their original black colour, and are believed to have originally come from Crawshay Bailey’s ironworks driveway in Nantyglo.

It is thought they may have been made at Lewis’s iron foundry in Abergavenny’s Lewis’s Lane, which was supported by Sir Benjamin Hall of Llanover, of Big Ben fame, who had castings made for the Government as well as the railings for Hyde Park and those at Usk’s St Mary’s Church.