Its leafy environs have been a temporary home to steam rallies, carnivals, music festivals, cycling races, tanks, and even legendary gunslinger Buffalo Bill, who brought his Wild West show to our sleepy market town way back when.

It’s long been a stage of sporting endeavour and a popular location of choice for dog walkers and daytime drinkers.

Bailey Park marked it’s 143rd anniversary this year, and like an aging starlet who’s over the hill and on the long inevitable slide into ruin, many would say the old place is but a shadow of its former glories.

The toilets have been shut, the outdoor swimming pool filled in, the tennis courts reduced to rubble, there’s no more brass in the bandstand and the hard working Friends of Bailey Park fight a daily battle to protect the once immaculate shrubs and picturesque flowerbeds from a relentless tide of dog excrement, lager cans, broken glass, shopping trolleys and all the other flotsam and jetsam of the modern world.

It’s safe to say the planner’s dream has gone wrong. It wasn’t envisaged this way back in the heady days of 1884 when the vision of a green space and recreational area for all first became a reality.

Under the headline ‘The Munificent gift Of Mr Crawshay Bailey’, the Chronicle reported that Mr Edwin Tucker, on behalf of Mr Bailey’s Park Committee read a rough draft to the Town Council for “the government and orderly keeping of the park.”

As in the case of most things, there was a big difference between now and then, and the running of the park was no exception.

Whereas nowadays we just have poor quality CCTV and public vigilance to protect old mother Bailey from the vicious whim of the cowardly vandal, Mr Bailey insisted on appointing a Park Keeper who would control and regulate the grounds around the clock.

Mr Bailey was a hands on type of chap and also insisted that no game, of any nature be allowed to be played in the park without the club first procuring the necessary licence from a person appointed by his good self.

Naturally, being a ludicrously rich landowner (some 12,248 acres in Wales alone) wasn’t without its perks and Bailey reserved the right to let the whole of the park out to anyone and at any time, if he deemed it as beneficial to Abergavenny.

Mr Tucker pointed out just how advantageous this would be and for the benefits of any doubting Thomas he explained, “For instance, should Mr Bailey accept the post of president to the West of England Agricultural Club, he might say to them, ‘I have a nice ground suitable for your meeting. Come down into our part of the country and I will see the park at your disposal.’”

Mr Johnson, who was responsible for the planning and design of Bailey Park, laid out his vision in the following terms.

“Along the side nearest the cattle market a stone wall will be built with an iron railing on the top of it, the remaining portion being enclosed by an ornamental fence of larch with the bark left on it. 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.”

And then to much applause, Mr Tucker added that a spot adjoining the Hereford Road side was earmarked by Mr Bailey as a site for a possible swimming bath.

Mr Bailey explained he had altered the plan to do away with the lawn tennis ground and said, “It would not do to mix up the lawn tennis with the football and cricket, and we already have lawn tennis courts at the castle which the tennis players could retain.”

It was reported that several members of the council nodded their heads sagely at this wise decision.

The so-called people’s park’ was scheduled to be ready for use by May 1 of that year and the council were agreed that “it will be a means of perpetuating the memory and transmitting the name of Mr Bailey to distant generations as one of the chief benefactors the town ever had.”

Of course, Bailey still owned the park and called the shots regarding its use as the town was just leasing it, but ten years later that would all change.

After Mr Bailey’s shock death in 1887 at the age of 46, the park’s future was undecided.

In 1894 a public meeting was held at the Town Hall to decide the question as to whether the town should purchase the freehold of Bailey Park, so as to secure it as a recreation ground.

The board of commissioners agreed that had Mr Bailey lived it would have no doubt been is intention to present the park, which he has spent between £2,000 and £3,000 (the equivalent of between £180,000-£200,000 in modern money) upon, to the people of Abergavenny.

As it stood, the initial 21 years’ lease had a little more than ten years before it expired and the land would revert back to the Trustees, which consisted of the Bailey family and associate partners.

The Board agreed that for the town to be deprived of the use of the park would be a terrible thing, especially in light of all the money that had been spent upon it.

The Board approached the Trustees and asked if they would carry out what they imagined was Mr Bailey’s original intention - to give the Park to the people without the people having to spend anything.

Fat chance!

The Trustees insisted upon a sum of £5000, over £2000 more than Mr Bailey had initially spent on the park ten years earlier.

Faster than you could say ‘philanthropic benefactor’ the Trustees had almost doubled their investment.

It was a big ask for the Abergavenny ratepayers but the town’s council decided to do what everyone does when they want something they can’t afford - they got a loan!

The loan was from the Local Government Board and sanctioned for a lengthy period. The council were hopeful that the revenue generated by the park would be sufficient enough to pay it back without the ratepayers having to pay a single penny.

It was agreed that the park was to be maintained as a public space and the ratepayers were responsible for its upkeep, whether it paid or not.

Somewhat mysteriously, Councillor Max Beveridge then asked the question, “Was there not some privilege to a certain hotel to sell intoxicants in the park?”

The Chairman replied that Mr Crawshay Bailey had a kindly feeling towards the proprietor of a certain hotel, and had accorded the privilege towards him during his occupation of the hotel, but the hotel was now in other hands and no such privilege existed now.”

Mr Beveridge then launched into a lengthy rant, about his two great objections in regard to the park. He insisted that the public should only pay for its upkeep on two conditions. No drinking or betting was to be allowed.

Mr Beveridge then added, “I have had a great deal to do with young men in the last 16 or 18 years and I always find that sports connected with drink, which brings on betting, are the greatest evils that young men have to contend with.”

What Mr Beveridge would make of the abandoned beer bottles and soiled scratch cards which now litter the rolling greens Bailey Park on a daily basis is anybody’s guess. But we digress. Let’s allow the man to finish.

“When we allow young men to drink and gamble without restraint or consideration, we lose them altogether. I could give names of young men lost altogether through these things. I know the majority of this meeting are against me but they ought to listen to me and ban any drinking or gambling in these grounds,” said Mr Beveridge.

Dr S H Steel added that he agreed with Mr Beveridge and that the park was a huge advantage to the town, not only of amusement, but for the promotion of health.

He also thanked him for having the courage to speak his mind at a public meeting, even though his views were not popular.

The Rev’d S R Young also expressed his sympathy with Mr Beveridge and hoped the Park would be a blessing and not a curse to the town. He said he would ‘do all he could to help keep the morals of the Park right’.

And thus ends the tale of how Bailey Park became a part of Abergavenny.

The mystery of the gates

THE mystery of where the famous Bailey Park gates were actually made seems to be shrouded in the mists of time although there are several possibilities including one very close to home.

Lewis’s Lane was once the site of Lewis’s iron foundry.

Lewis was a journeyman craftsman from Merthyr.

He was supported by Sir Benjamin Hall (Big Ben) of Llanover who had castings made for the Government as well as the railings for Hyde Park and the ones at Usk’s St Mary’s Church, Usk.

Abergavenny’s St Mary’s Priory Church and the cemetery gates in Old Hereford Road were all out of the same casting pit in Lewis’s Lane.

Bailey Park’s grand entrance on the Hereford Road is renowned for its impressive double wrought iron gates.

But were they forged in the fires of the casting pit at Lewis’s Lane. Or did Crawshay Bailey take advantage of his family connections in the iron industry to have them made elsewhere?