Godfrey Morgan, a.k.a. Lord Tredegar, presented Newport with twenty-three acres of parkland in 1891.
An open competition to design the park was won by Thomas Mawson. Making his first visit to the site (after winning!) Thomas realised that his plans had been based on the neighbouring field.
He quickly corrected his mistake. Belle Vue Park was laid out with carriage drives, conservatories, fountains and a pavilion.
Young women and their beaus came here for an ice-cream and an evening stroll in the early 1900s, as brass bands performed on the band stand.
Mawson went on to become one of the foremost landscape architects of the Victorian era.