THIS week we have chosen photographs from the digital archives of Pontypool Museum looking back at the Italian Gardens in Pontypool Park.

Believed to have been installed around 1850, the gardens pay homage to the Isola Bella Gardens at Lake Maggiore in Lombardy, northern Italy.

The gardens were first noted, however, in an ordnance survey map in 1918, although an area where the gardens lay is noted but not named in the 1881 edition.

Above the gardens are the memorial gates, which honour the servicemen who lost their lives in the First World War, and the subsequent wars which have followed and involved service personnel from the area.

One of the photos shows a rare glimpse of the original gardens and in the colours which would have bedecked the Italian Gardens in Pontypool Park.

The gardens were refurbished in 2006, and have become a labour of love for the Pontypool Park Friends, which often hold sessions to help with the upkeep of the gardens.

The other image shows a family on the edge of the gardens in preparation for celebrating St David’s Day.

These images were donated by the Pontypool Museum as part of its digital archive, which aims to preserve historic documents, images and records from the area.

To find out more about the digital archive, contact the museum at pontypoolmusueum@hotmail.co.uk or call 01495 752036.