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And of course, the now-traditional InterConnect double-decker running Park & Ride services. 10901 makes a return to Hull after an absence of five years, and in the meantime, it seems to have picked up a fair few scratches and dings. Those thrashings up and down rural Lincolnshire certainly not doing it any favours, that's for sure. I suspect the paintwork has been allowed to get this rough-and-tumble pending the application of the new-style InterConnect livery across this batch, as shown on the Wright single-deck also on loan to cover regular services. I think it'll look quite nice, honestly. But it just won't be the same seeing them like that every October.
Back in Hull for the first time in five years to work on the Hull Fair shuttles, Stagecoach Lincolnshire RoadCar's 'InterConnect'-branded 10901, a 2017 ADL Enviro400 MMC, is seen waiting time at Priory Park as it awaits passengers on another 22 shuttle to Hull Fair.
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Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning.
National Air and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center, Dulles, Va. October 29, 2009.
Info from the museum's website:
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45 Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45 Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45 Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45 Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45 Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
another bus i was after was 10901 which was repainted into new Interconnect aswell as 10899 and more recently 11742?
10901 does the 59 to Skegness Interchange
10901 YX67 VCO
Painted in Interconnect livery.
Stagecoach East Midlands
Scania N230UD/ADL Enviro400
FX12BBN (15809)
Melville Street, Lincoln
13 July 2018
Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning.
National Air and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center, Dulles, Va. October 29, 2009.
Info from the museum's website:
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45 Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45 Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45 Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45 Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45 Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
Stagecoach Skegness, East Midlands 15809 FX12BBN, Scania N230UD Alexander Dennis Enviro400 in Interconnect livery.
Stagecoach East Midlands ADL Enviro 300 27191 (SL64 HYA), is seen departing Lincoln Tentercroft Street Bus Station on 11th November 2017.
Working an 'Interconnect' 1 service to Wellingore.
New to Stagecoach South Wales in 2014.
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Reference pure Silver USB C to micro usb OTG angled L shape interconnect cable for Android Samsung Galaxy S9 S10 Note 9 Google Pixel 3 OnePlus 6T LG G6 G7 V40 Huawei Mate 20 Pro Honor 10 Xiaomi Pocophone F1 by Lavricables
Stagecoach East Midlands 15612 is heading for Doncaster on service 25 from Worksop. It is a Scania N230UD with Alexander Dennis Enviro400 bodywork, fitted with coach seats and painted in InterConnect livery. It was new to Thames Transit (Stagecoach Oxford) in 2010, in Gold livery for use on services S1 & S2 between Carterton, Witney and Oxford.
Stagecoach East Midlands ADL Enviro 300, 27191 (SL64 HYA), is seen at Riverhead Exchange in Grimsby on 18th February 2017.
It is waiting to work the second to last Interconnect 53 from Grimsby to Lincoln, of the day.
New to Stagecoach South Wales 2014.
Reference pure Silver USB C to micro usb OTG angled L shape interconnect cable for Android Samsung Galaxy S9 S10 Note 9 Google Pixel 3 OnePlus 6T LG G6 G7 V40 Huawei Mate 20 Pro Honor 10 Xiaomi Pocophone F1 by Lavricables
Stagecoach East Midlands ADL Enviro 400 19197 (NK57 DWA), is seen on Humberston Road in Cleethorpes on 5th May 2024.
Working a service 5 from Immingham County Hotel to Hewitts Circus. The hourly '5' extends east of Grimsby Town Centre on Sunday daytimes (continuing as a service 10 via Cleethorpes to Waltham), unusually meaning that this section of Humberston Road has a better service compared to Monday to Saturdays with just the thrice daily Grimsby-Saltfleet service 50 (albeit there are no bus stops on this section).
New to Stagecoach North East 2007.
New in 02/2004 for the InterConnect 3 between Lincoln and Cleethorpes, 909 (FX53TXC) is a Volvo B7TL with East Lancashire Vyking bodywork.
I'm unsure of the date I took this photo, as I didn't bother to put one on the print. A great shame, as these few scans are all that is left of my old photo collection!
Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning. National Air and Space Museum, Udvar-Hazy Center, Dulles, Va. October 29, 2009.
Info from the museum's website:
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Museum records show that Lockheed assigned the construction number 422-2273 to the National Air and Space Museum's P-38. The Army Air Forces accepted this Lightning as a P-38J-l0-LO on November 6, 1943, and the service identified the airplane with the serial number 42-67762. Recent investigations conducted by a team of specialists at the Paul E. Garber Facility, and Herb Brownstein, a volunteer in the Aeronautics Division at the National Air and Space Museum, have revealed many hitherto unknown aspects to the history of this aircraft.
Brownstein examined NASM files and documents at the National Archives. He discovered that a few days after the Army Air Forces (AAF) accepted this airplane, the Engineering Division at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, granted Lockheed permission to convert this P-38 into a two-seat trainer. The firm added a seat behind the pilot to accommodate an instructor who would train civilian pilots in instrument flying techniques. Once trained, these test pilots evaluated new Lightnings fresh off the assembly line.
In a teletype sent by the Engineering Division on March 2, 1944, Brownstein also discovered that this P-38 was released to Colonel Benjamin S. Kelsey from March 3 to April 10, 1944, to conduct special tests. This action was confirmed the following day in a cable from the War Department. This same pilot, then a Lieutenant, flew the XP-38 across the United States in 1939 and survived the crash that destroyed this Lightning at Mitchel Field, New York. In early 1944, Kelsey was assigned to the Eighth Air Force in England and he apparently traveled to the Lockheed factory at Burbank to pick up the P-38. Further information about these tests and Kelsey's involvement remain an intriguing question.
One of Brownstein's most important discoveries was a small file rich with information about the NASM Lightning. This file contained a cryptic reference to a "Major Bong" who flew the NASM P-38 on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field. Bong had planned to fly for an hour to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. His flight ended after twenty-minutes when "the right engine blew up before I had a chance [to conduct the test]." The curator at the Richard I. Bong Heritage Center confirmed that America's highest scoring ace made this flight in the NASM P-38 Lightning.
Working in Building 10 at the Paul E. Garber Facility, Rob Mawhinney, Dave Wilson, Wil Lee, Bob Weihrauch, Jim Purton, and Heather Hutton spent several months during the spring and summer of 2001 carefully disassembling, inspecting, and cleaning the NASM Lightning. They found every hardware modification consistent with a model J-25 airplane, not the model J-10 painted in the data block beneath the artifact's left nose. This fact dovetails perfectly with knowledge uncovered by Brownstein. On April 10, the Engineering Division again cabled Lockheed asking the company to prepare 42-67762 for transfer to Wright Field "in standard configuration." The standard P-38 configuration at that time was the P-38J-25. The work took several weeks and the fighter does not appear on Wright Field records until May 15, 1944. On June 9, the Flight Test Section at Wright Field released the fighter for flight trials aimed at collecting pilot comments on how the airplane handled.
Wright Field's Aeromedical Laboratory was the next organization involved with this P-38. That unit installed a kit on July 26 that probably measured the force required to move the control wheel left and right to actuate the power-boosted ailerons installed in all Lightnings beginning with version J-25. From August 12-16, the Power Plant Laboratory carried out tests to measure the hydraulic pump temperatures on this Lightning. Then beginning September 16 and lasting about ten days, the Bombing Branch, Armament Laboratory, tested type R-3 fragmentation bomb racks. The work appears to have ended early in December. On June 20, 1945, the AAF Aircraft Distribution Office asked that the Air Technical Service Command transfer the Lightning from Wright Field to Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, a temporary holding area for Air Force museum aircraft. The P-38 arrived at the Oklahoma City Air Depot on June 27, 1945, and mechanics prepared the fighter for flyable storage.
Airplane Flight Reports for this Lightning also describe the following activities and movements:
6-21-45 Wright Field, Ohio, 5.15 hours of flying.
6-22-45 Wright Field, Ohio, .35 minutes of flying by Lt. Col. Wendel [?] J. Kelley and P. Shannon.
6-25-45 Altus, Oklahoma, .55 hours flown, pilot P. Shannon.
6-27-45 Altus, Oklahoma, #2 engine changed, 1.05 hours flown by Air Corps F/O Ralph F. Coady.
10-5-45 OCATSC-GCAAF (Garden City Army Air Field, Garden City, Kansas), guns removed and ballast added.
10-8-45 Adams Field, Little Rock, Arkansas.
10-9-45 Nashville, Tennessee,
5-28-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, maintenance check by Air Corps Capt. H. M. Chadhowere [sp]?
7-24-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 1 hour local flight by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
7-31-46 Freeman Field, Indiana, 4120th AAF Base Unit, ferry flight to Orchard Place [Illinois] by 1st Lt. Charles C. Heckel.
On August 5, 1946, the AAF moved the aircraft to another storage site at the former Consolidated B-24 bomber assembly plant at Park Ridge, Illinois. A short time later, the AAF transferred custody of the Lightning and more than sixty other World War II-era airplanes to the Smithsonian National Air Museum. During the early 1950s, the Air Force moved these airplanes from Park Ridge to the Smithsonian storage site at Suitland, Maryland.
Neil Forrest uses various systems of interconnecting nodes that spread in a matrix. These are generated as dimensional field ornament that corresponds to the distinctive curved space produced by arabesque and muqarna of Islam. Forrest’s work presents a detached ceramic ornament in response to the changing typographies within contemporary architecture - expanding systems intended to modify the psyche of space that is distinguished by lightness and openness. Forrest’s architectural ceramics are porcelain scaffolds, resembling coral environments and truss-like vertebrae.
Working from Gottfried Semper’s analysis that the dressing or decorative surface perform the spatial essence of the wall, and emphasizing the architectural significance of the ‘joint’, Forrest presents a tectonic and nomadic ceramic ornament. The project of ‘colonizing architecture’ is a theory of connectedness enabling close independence, which embraces the principle of non-hierarchical pattern behaviors that largely underpin the decorative arts.
Here ornament is understood as the libido for contemporary architecture, and can be tasked as having increasing utility to the organism of architecture, ready to engage an elegantly engineered world.
Neil Forrest has exhibited and lectured in North America, UK, Europe and Asia, and is currently Professor of Ceramics at NSCAD University. His most recent exhibitions were Wurzelwerk, Scaffs and Thicket. His ceramics have been published in books, craft magazines and architectural journals. Forrest studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Alfred University and Sheridan College of Crafts and is involved in several research collaborations that examine ceramics for architecture.
Stagecoach East Midlands 10897 is standing in Louth Bus Station, having arrived from Grimsby on service 51. It is an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC, new in 2017 and painted in InterConnect livery for use on service 100 between Scunthorpe, Gainsborough and Lincoln.
Reference pure Silver USB C to micro usb OTG angled L shape interconnect cable for Android Samsung Galaxy S9 S10 Note 9 Google Pixel 3 OnePlus 6T LG G6 G7 V40 Huawei Mate 20 Pro Honor 10 Xiaomi Pocophone F1 by Lavricables
The National Botanic Garden of Wales (NBGW) 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.
NBGW 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." NBGW is a Registered Charity reliant upon funding from visitors, friends, grants and gifts. From 2008–2009 onwards, the garden will be receiving £550,000 revenue support per annum from the Welsh Assembly Government. 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’.
Paxton created an ingenious water park. Water flowed around the estate via a system of interconnecting lakes, ponds and streams linked by a network of dams, water sluices, bridges and cascades. Spring water was stored in elevated reservoirs that fed into a lead cistern on the mansion’s roof, allowing Paxton’s residence to enjoy piped running water and the very latest luxury, water closets.
In 1806, Saxton engaged Pepys Cockerell again to design and then oversee the construction of Paxton's Tower on the estate, which was completed in 1809. A Neo-Gothic folly erected in honour of Lord Nelson, it is situated on a hilltop near Llanarthney in the Towy Valley. Today the folly is now owned by the National Trust.
By the time of Paxton's death in 1824, Middleton Hall estate covered some 2,650 acres (1,070 ha). The sale agents engaged that year described the esate thus in their catalogue:
“Richly ornamented by nature, and greatly improved by art. A beautiful tower erected to the memory of the noble hero the late Lord Nelson, forming a grand and prominent feature in the Property and a Land Mark in the County, opposite to which are the Ruins of Dryslwyn Castle, and the Grongar Hills, With the Tower winding to a great extent, presenting a scenery that may vie with any County. As to local amenities, the Roads are excellent, a good Neighborhood, and Country abounding with highly Picturesque Scenery”
Middleton Hall estate was sold to Jamaican-born West India merchant, Edward Hamlin Adams, for £54,700. Neither a gardener nor a lover of water features, while adding buildings that aided his love of country sports, the bath houses quickly fell into disrepair, and only the gardens immediately visible from the house were maintained.
In 1842 the estate passed into the hands of his eccentric son Edward, who immediately changed his name from Adams into the Welsh form Abadam. Not loving the country or gardens, according to his estate manager Thomas Cooke, Edward was a social nightmare. As his son predeceased him, on his death in 1875 the estate passed to his daughter, who had married into the local Hughes family. In 1919 the estate changed hands again when Major William J. H. Hughes sold it to Colonel William N. Jones.
In 1931, the mansion was completely gutted by fire, leaving only the walls standing, themselves covered in globules of moulten lead from the melted roof. After this the estate fell into decline, and 20 years later the walls of the main house were pulled down. The site was then bought by Carmarthenshire County Council, and leased to young farmers hoping to make their way into an agricultural career.
In 1978, interest had been captured by local walkers, who were keen to revive the splendour of what they could see around them. Setting up a fund raising scheme, the little money raised led to the rediscovery of a number of historical features.
The idea for a National Botanic Garden of Wales originated from the Welsh artist, William Wilkins, whose aunt had described to him the ruins of an elaborate water features she had discovered while walking in the local woods at Pont Felin Gat. Under the guidance of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust, an application was made to the Millennium Commission to fund Britain’s first national botanic garden for 200 years.
Virtually on the site of Cockerell's mansion, the Great Glasshouse now forms the centrepiece. Much of the original water-scape has been restored, and extended by introducing cascades to the western approach to the Glasshouse. The extraordinary original view the east side of the mansion offered over the grounds has been restored, extending as originally to Paxton's Tower in the distance. Many experts have commented that this view gives visitors an ability to see and hence understand something of what the great landscape architects of the end of the eighteenth century understood by the word “Picturesque”.
The Garden was opened to the public for the first time on 24 May 2000, and was officially opened on 21 July by the Prince of Wales. In 2003, the garden ran into serious financial difficulties, and in 2004 it accepted a financial package from the Welsh Assembly Government, Carmarthenshire County Council and the Millennium Commission to secure its future.
The site extends to 568 acres (2.30 km2), and among the garden's rare and threatened plants is the whitebeam Sorbus leyana. 21st Century approaches to recycling and conservation have been used in the design of the centre: biomass recycling is used to provide heating for some of the facilities such as the visitor centre and glasshouses.
Placed virtually on the same site as Paxton's new but now demolished Middleton Hall, the Great Glasshouse, designed by Foster and Partners, is the largest structure of its kind in the world. The structure is 95 m (312 ft) long and 55 m (180 ft) wide, with a roof containing 785 panes of glass. Housing plants from several Mediterranean climate regions, the plants are divided into sections from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean itself.
The Double Walled Garden has been rebuilt from the ruins, and is being developed to house a wide variety of plants, including a modern interpretation of a kitchen garden in one quarter, and ornamental beds to display the classification and evolution of all flowering plant families in the other three quarters.
In 2007, a new Tropical Glasshouse, designed by Welsh architect John Belle, was opened to continue the classification displays with tropical monocotyledons.
In 2015 a large collection of Welsh Apple varieties have been planted and a Welsh Pomona is forthcoming.