The Floridablanca garden in Murcia

When I did the piece on gardening in Spain a couple of days ago I had a root around on the Internet for information about Spanish gardens and gardeners. One bit of information that I turned up was that the oldest public garden in Spain is in Murcia City and, as that's very close to home, we went to have a look today.

Nowadays the garden is a traffic island so it's hardly peaceful but it was certainly shady and well used by a mixture of strollers, newspaper readers and bench sleepers. The parkie was having a fag as we passed.

Apparently the garden was designed and opened in 1786 on what had been the tree lined avenue, the Alameda del Carmen. It was designed to a Romantic style and when it was remodeled in 1848 it was given a new name in honour of one of the city's notable citizens, Jose Moñino Redondo, Count or Conde de Floridablanca.

We'd never heard of the fellow before but at our next stop, the Hydraulic Museum, his name turned up again as the promoter of the old water mill which had doubled as a flood defence system.