1. On initial inspection the garden seems to have enjoyed three main phases. These are at present conjectural.

The most recent phase is coincident with the Humphries family's incumbency, uses and covers the entire canvass of historic castle and mound. This garden's form and features are well-defined, including: rose espalier made from sewage-farm quality piping; the props to a gazebo of 1937 made from ?First World War shell cases and a notable, even delicate gate made from welded horseshoes inside a steel cart tyre.

An earlier phase of historic garden and gardening is evident from the 1905 O.S. plan. It shows a glasshouse running in parallel to the 17th century barn, and there are other features suggestive of conventional Victorian gardening and landscaping. This phase seems to have had its origins in occupancy of the gatehouse as a sort of minor gentry cottage 'ornee' or 'maison ruine' or 'antique' focused on the gatehouse. During the later eighteenth century Usk Castle became part of the circuit for Picturesque Travellers, and as part of contemporary fashion it may well have been deliberately planted, maintained or even manicured, to look like a decaying picturesque ruin. To this end it would probably have been clothed in some exotic shrubs and trees.

What happened after abandonment of the castle for defence, and before the mid-eighteenth century is a most interesting question. One would expect a formal layout focused on the gatehouse, but if that anticipation were serious, it would have to be demonstrated that that dwelling had indeed been the focus of habitation during the 16th and 17th centuries.

There is a good collection of stone ballusters on the present-day lawn and a couple or more gateways' worth of superb balluster-headed gateposts, all offering the sort of obvious evidence needed to demonstrate a formal layout of that very period. However, at present it is not clear when these stones arrived on the site. Certainly, from all other indications there is good reason to suppose they may be modern imports intended to offer the place a greater sense of antiquity. They succeed!
Bibliography Llewellyn, Roddy (1990).'In Keeping with a Castle',Country Life Sept 13th 1999.

2. This garden is depicted on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey 25-inch map of Monmouthshire XIX, sheet 15 (1901).
C.S.Briggs 16.05.06