Page:The National Gazetteer - A Topographical Dictionary of the British Islands, Volume 2.djvu/879

Rh MONMOUTH. 871 MONHOUTII. and providing more convenient sites. There are some iron and tiu works in the vicinity, and a few persons are engaged in tanning and wood turning, but the principal business is connected with the navigation of the Wye, in the trade between Bristol and Hereford and the intermediate places. In the season a considerable quantity of bark is brought from the upper districts of the Wye, and stowed in piles to be pared and cleaned previous to exportation to Chopstow for the south of England and Ireland. Caps once formed a considerable article of manufacture, employing many thousands of <;, as recorded by Fuller, and the cappers' chapel is still remaining, but the trade has entirely died out, hiving previously been removed to Bcwdley, in Wor- cestershire, on the occasion of a great plague which then raged in Monmouth. The town received its first charter of incorporation from Edward VI., and is a borough by perscription. Under the new Municipal Reform Act it is governed by a mayor, who with the bailifls is returning officer, four aldermen, and twelve common councillors, with the style of " mayor, bailiffs, and commonalty of the town and borough of Jlonmouth." The area of the new borough comprises 500 acres, and the revenue is about 500. The population within the municipal boundaries was in 1861, 5,783, while the parliamentary comprised 30,577, the latter including, besides the whole of the parish of Monmouth, part of the adjoining parish of Dixton. From the time of Henry VIII. it returned two members to parliament till the passing of the Reform Bill, since which it has returned only one with its con- tributory boroughs, Newport and Usk. It is also the place of election, and a polling town for the county elections. The assizes for the county and the petty sessions for the upper division of the hundred of Usk are held here, and the corporation hold quarterly courts of session for the trial of misdemeanours within the borough jurisdiction. The court of record was estab- lished by charter of Edward VI., empowering the mayor and bailiff's to hold pleas in actions to any amount. It is also the headquarters of the county militia. As forming a part of the Duchy of Lancaster, llonmouth is subject to the jurisdiction of tho Duchy courts. Is is the head of a Poor-law Union comprising 24 pars, and tnshps. in the CO. of Monmouth, 5 in that of Hereford, and 3 in that of Gloucester. It is also the seat of new County Court and superintendent registry districts. In ecclesiastical divisions it gives name to an archdeae. in tho dioc. of Llandaff and prov. of Canterbury, con- taining the deaneries of Abergavenny, Chepstow, New- port, and Usk. The living is a vie.* in tho dioc. of Llandaff, val. 200, in the patron, of the Duke of Beaufort, of Troy House in this parish. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was anciently the conventual church of a Benedictine priory founded here in the ruign of Henry II. by Wyhenoc do Monmouth as a cell to the abbey of St. Florence in France. The body of the church has been rebuilt in the modern style, hut" the original tower, surmounted by a spire 210 feet high, has been retained, forming an interesting feature in the appearance of the town. There is also the district church of St. Thomas, the living of which is a perpet. cur., val. SO. The church is an ancient edifice with a low tower, built before the Norman conquest, and for many i was in a ruinous condition, but was restored and fitted up for Divine service in 1830 at the joint expense of the Duke of Beaufort and the parishioners. The circular shape of the doorways indicates a very high antiquity, and some antiquaries are of opinion that the more ancient parts are of British construction. The mould- f the arch between the nave and the chancel, and the N. doorway of the nave, are deserving of particular attention. There are places of worship for Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, and Roman Catholics. The free grammar school was founded in the reign of I. by William Jones, a native of Newland, near M'.;,::J. h, who was forced to quit his county for not . able to pay 10 groats ; he came to London, where 1 a 1'iirtuno as a haberdasher, and bequeathed for tho endowment of a school and almshouse, and for the establishment of a lectureship in the church at Monmouth. The almshouses consist of tenements for twenty poor people, under the direction of the Company of Haberdashers in London, and the school premises form a block of building near Wyebridge. The National school is held in a spacious room with an oriel window, formerly part of the Benedictine priory mentioned above, and said to have been the study of the celebrated historian Galfredus-ap- Arthur, Bishop of St. Asaph, better known as Geoftrey of Monmouth, who was educated at this place. An infant school was built in 1838. The charities produce about 900 per annum. In tho im- mediate neighbourhood of the town are several antique mansions, including two old seats of the dukes of Beaufort, one within the castle site, built in 1673 out of the ruins, and the other, Troy House, near Penallt, about half a mile to tho S.W. of the town, near the road to Chepstow, and still occupied by that family. This latter mansion was rebuilt after a design by Inigo Jones, but part of the original structure is preserved in the Gothic gateway, with its ancient portcullis. The edifice has little that can recommend it to notice as an architectural performance, but contains many highly interesting relics of antiquity, as the armour that Henry V. is said to have worn at the battle of Agincourt, and the cradle wherein he is supposed to have reposed, but the modernness of the latter bespeaks it to have been the crib of some of the Beaufort family in the time of Charles II. ; there are also several valuable family por- traits, particularly that of Edward Earl of Glamorgan, sixth earl and second marquis of Worcester. In the house- keeper's room is a curious oak chimney-piece brought from Ragland Castle, carved with scriptural subjects, and in a room on the third floor is another inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ornamented with devices. The gardens, once so celebrated for their beauty, are now converted into orchards. Also on the right bank of the Wye, and at a little distance from Troy House, is the church of Penallt, remarkable for a Welsh custom nar- rated by Roscoe, and supposed by him to be a remnant of Druidic superstition. On the road to Ragland Castle, and about 1 mile from tho town, is Wynastow House, conjectured to have been built about the reign of Henry VI. by one of tho Herbert family, affording an interest- ing example of the domestic architecture of the 15th century. The old chapel attached is now applied to domestic uses. About 1 mile farther W. is Treowon, built from designs by Inigo Jones, but now converted into a farmhouse. It stands on the banks of the Trothy, and still exhibits many traces of its ancient grandeur in the spacious apartments and noble staircase of oak. In the adjoining parish of Stanton, at the distance of about a mile from Monmouth, but on the Gloucestershire side of the Wye rises a remarkably high hill of Old Red sand- stone rock, which commands a wonderful range of pros- pect, extending to a circumference of near 300 miles. A walk is traced up to the summit, where stands a circular pavilion consisting of two stories ; the upper a refresh- ment-room with five windows each commanding a different prospect ; and the lower a kitchen. Its sum- mit is also adorned with a plantation called Beaulieu Grove, in which is the Nelson temple, built in 1800 to record the naval victories obtained by the English during the American war. It is situate*' on the edge of a rock, and forms a square of 13 feet. Tue frieze, which is continued round it, is ornamented with medallions of the most eminent British admirals, surrounded with emblematic and appropriate devices. In the same parish, through which evidently passed the Roman highway, as indicated by its name, Stanton, is one of the most cele- brated rocking-stones in England ; this is formed of a rude fragment of a silicious grit technically known as old red conglomerate, standing near the edge of a pre- cipitous declivity of limestone rock, and nearly re- sembling in form an inverted pyramid 24 feet high, its circumference at top being 53 feet, and the point on which it rests about 3 feet. It is popularly known aa the Buckstone, from having been, as is alleged, the usual spot for hearkening to the hounds when in pursuit of