Brenda Colvin

In 1963 the distinguished landscape architect Brenda Colvin was commissioned by Sir Percy Thomas to design the area between Pantycelyn Hall and the Biology Building.

She produced two plans, a landscape design with a curving walk feature and a subsequent planting plan. The plan incorporated tree screening along the north boundary to the A487 and broad tree belts along the south boundary adjoining the National Library of Wales. 

The planting was implemented closely to the plan in broad terms with tree belts consisting of mixtures of conifers and deciduous trees including Pinus radiata, Abies procera, Quercus ilex and Acer pseudoplatanus, underplanted with a range of ornamental and evergreen shrubs such as Heathers, Cotoneaster and Olearia.Within the tree belts Populus alba was planted as a nurse tree.

Notes on the plan refer to scale and form of the proposed planting in relation to the site levels. Other notes by Colvin indicated that her list of proposed plants was not meant to be exhaustive and additional planting could be included but the main tree groups should be kept fairly closely to the list to ‘preserve the simplicity of effect and to serve as shelter belts and background rather than as ornamental features in competition withthe internal detailed planting’ . 

The plants and trees selected were very suitable for the site and large areas of this
tree planting remain today. The two original Colvin plans are the only ones she produced for this site and they are now held at the University of Reading in the Museum of English Rural Life archive.

The Colvin plans are the only definitive planting /landscape plans that exist for the campus in detail that can be recognised and attributed to in terms of areas and plant species.