National Botanic Garden of Wales
Coordinates: 51°50′15″N 4°09′06″W / 51.83756°N 4.15176°W
The National Botanic Garden of Wales (Welsh: Gardd Fotaneg Genedlaethol Cymru) is situated near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire, Wales. The garden is both a visitor attraction and a centre for botanical research and conservation, and features the world's largest single-span glasshouse measuring 110 m (360 ft) long by 60 m (200 ft) wide.
The National Botanic Garden of Wales seeks "to develop a viable world-class national botanic garden dedicated to the research and conservation of biodiversity and its sustainable utilisation, to lifelong learning and to the enjoyment of the visitor." The Garden is a registered charity reliant upon funding from visitors, friends, grants and gifts. Significant start-up costs were shared with the UK Millennium Fund.
The Middleton family from Oswestry built a mansion here in the early 17th century. In 1789 Sir William Paxton bought the estate for £40,000 to create a water park. He used his great wealth to employ some of the finest creative minds of his day, including the eminent architect Samuel Pepys Cockerell, whom he commissioned to design and build a new Middleton Hall, turning the original one into a farm. The new Middleton Hall became ‘one of the most splendid mansions in South Wales’ which ‘far eclipsed the proudest of the Cambrian mansions in Asiatic pomp and splendour’.
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