A SCULPTURE of two lovers that honours the couple who created Pontypool’s Italian Gardens is to be moved into storage during building works. 

A major redevelopment of the public toilets at Hanbury Road, which is above the gardens, to create a new restaurant and cafe is due to get underway. 

The project has been funded with £7.6 million from the UK Government’s Levelling Up programme, that also includes the restoration of the derelict St James’ Church opposite the toilets, is intended to attract some of the nearly 300,000 annual visitors to Pontypool Park into the town centre.

A planning condition of the redevelopment of the toilet block has required Torfaen Borough Council, which is responsible for the scheme, to submit details to its planning department of how it will retain and restore the wooden sculpture on the wall at the back of the toilet block, in the park. 

The council has said the sculpture will be “safely moved to a secure storage unit in Pontypool Park, where it would be maintained until the development is completed.” 

The sculpture will then be returned to its original setting. The planning department has confirmed the plan is acceptable. 

The wooden sculpture was created by Newport-based Chris Wood who has a number of wooden sculptures in Pontypool Park. The ‘Two Lovers’ celebrates Capel Hanbury Leigh, whose family owned Pontypool Park, and his second wife Emma Elizabeth. 

The couple spent their honeymoon, after marrying in 1847, at the Isola Bella Gardens in Lake Maggiore and were inspired to create the Italian Gardens, in the extensive grounds of Pontypool House, between 1849/50 with plants brought back from Italy. 

According to Torfaen Borough Council the gardens are noted as Italian Gardens on the 1918 ordnance survey map but are not mentioned on the 1881 map. However, an area of similar description is marked but not named, on the earlier map.