Monmouthshire (/ˈmɒnməθʃər, ˈmʌn-, -ʃɪər/ MON-məth-shər, MUN-, -sheer; Welsh: Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the south, and Torfaen, Newport and Blaenau Gwent to the west. The largest town is Abergavenny, and the administrative centre is Usk.
The county is rural, although adjacent to the city of Newport and the urbanised South Wales Valleys; it has an area of 330 square miles (850 km2) and a population of 93,000. After Abergavenny (12,515), the largest towns are Chepstow (12,350), Monmouth (10,508), and Caldicot (9,813). The county has one of the lowest percentages of Welsh speakers in Wales, at 8.2% of the population in 2021.
The lowlands in the centre of Monmouthshire are gently undulating, and shaped by the River Usk and its tributaries. The west of the county is hilly, and the Black Mountains in the northwest are part of the Brecon Beacons National Park (Bannau Brycheiniog). The border with England in the east largely follows the course of the River Wye and its tributary, the River Monnow. In the southeast is the Wye Valley AONB, a hilly region which stretches into England. The county has a shoreline on the Severn Estuary, with crossings into England by the Severn Bridge and Second Severn Crossing.
The name is identical to that of the historic county, of which the current local authority covers the eastern three-fifths. Between 1974 and 1996, the historic county was known as Gwent, recalling the medieval kingdom which covered a similar area. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996. In his essay 'Changes in local government', in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy writes, "the local government of no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".[4]
Evidence of human activity in the Mesolithic period has been found across Monmouthshire; examples include important remains on the Caldicot and Wentloog Levels[5][a] and at Monmouth.[7] An important hoard of Bronze Age axes was discovered at St Arvans.[8] The county has a number of hillfort sites, such as those at Bulwark[9] and Llanmelin Wood.[10] The latter has been suggested as the capital of the Silures, a Celtic tribe who occupied south-east Wales in the Iron Age.[11] The Silures proved among the most intractable of Rome's opponents, Tacitus described them as "exceptionally stubborn" and Raymond Howell, in his county history published in 1988, notes that while it took the Romans five years to subdue south-east England, it took thirty-five before complete subjugation of the Silurian territories was achieved.[12]
The Roman conquest of Britain began in AD 43, and within five years they had reached the borders of what is now Wales.[13] In south-east Wales they encountered strong resistance from the Silures, led by Caratacus (Caradog), who had fled west after the defeat of his own tribe, the Catuvellauni. His final defeat in AD 50 saw his transportation to Rome, but stiff Silurian resistance continued, and the subjugation of the entirety of south-east Wales was not achieved until around AD 75, under the governor of Britain, Sextus Julius Frontinus.[12]
Monmouthshire's most important Roman remains are found at the town of Venta Silurum ("Market of the Silures"), present-day Caerwent in the south of the county. The town was established in AD 75,[14] laid out in the traditional rectangular Roman pattern of twenty insulae with a basilica and a temple flanking a forum.[15] Other Roman settlements in the area included Blestium (Monmouth).[16][b] The Romanisation of Monmouthshire was not without continuing civil unrest; the defences at Caerwent, and at Caerleon, underwent considerable strengthening in the 190s in response to disturbances. The Silurian identity was not extinguished: the establishment of a Respublica Civitatis Silurium (an early town council) in around 300 testifies to the longevity of the indigenous tribal culture.[18]
The Roman abandonment of Britain from AD 383 saw the division of Wales into a number of petty kingdoms. In the south east (the present county of Monmouthshire) the Kingdom of Gwent was established, traditionally by Caradoc, in the 5th or 6th centuries. Siting their capital at Caerwent, the settlement gave its name to the kingdom.[19] The subsequent history of the area prior to the Norman Conquest is poorly documented and complex. The kingdom of Gwent frequently fought with the neighbouring Welsh kingdoms, and sometimes joined in alliance with them in, generally successful, attempts to repel the Anglo-Saxons, their common enemy. The Book of Llandaff records such a victory over the Saxon invaders achieved by Tewdrig at a battle near Tintern in the late 6th century.[20][c] An example of the alliances formed by neighbouring petty kings was the Kingdom of Morgannwg, a union between Gwent and its western neighbour, the kingdom of Glywysing, which formed and reformed between the 8th and the 10th centuries.[22] The common threat they faced is shown in Offa's Dyke, the physical delineation of a border with Wales created by the Mercian king.[23][d] For a brief period in the 11th century, Monmouthshire, as Gwent, became part of a united Wales under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, but his death in 1063 was soon followed by that of his opponent Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and the re-established unity of the country was to come from Norman dominance.[25]
The Norman invasion of South Wales from the late 1060s saw the destruction of the Kingdom of Gwent,[26] and its replacement by five Marcher lordships based at Striguil (Chepstow), Monmouth, Abergavenny, Usk and Caerleon.[27] The Marcher Lord of Abergavenny, Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester, described the rule of the lords as sicut regale ("like unto a king").[28] The lords established castles, first earth and wood motte-and-bailey constructions, and later substantial structures in stone, such as Chepstow Castle, begun by William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford as early as 1067,[29] and that at Tregrug, near Llangybi, by de Clare's son, Gilbert.[30] In the early Norman period, the cleric and chronicler, Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1095 – c. 1155), who may have been born at Monmouth, wrote his The History of the Kings of Britain, with a focus on King Arthur and Camelot which Geoffrey located at Caerleon (now in Newport), and which remained highly influential for centuries, although modern scholars consider it little more than a literary forgery.[31][e]
Christmas 1175 saw an outbreak of particular violence in the gradual extension of Norman control over South Wales. The Marcher lord William de Braose invited Seisyll ap Dyfnwal, lord of Upper Gwent, and an array of other Welsh notables to a feast at Abergavenny Castle. De Braose proceeded to have his men massacre the Welsh, intending the obliteration of the indigenous Gwent aristocracy, before sending them to burn Seisyll's home at Castell Arnallt and to murder his son. A wave of Welsh retaliation followed, described in detail by the contemporary chronicler, Gerald of Wales.[33]
Monmouthshire's Norman castles later became favoured residences of the Plantagenet nobility. Henry of Grosmont, Duke of Lancaster (c. 1310–1361), was reputedly born at Grosmont Castle,[34] home of his father Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, grandson of Henry III. Becoming the richest and among the most powerful lords in England, Grosmont developed the castle as a sumptuous residence, while the village became an important medieval settlement.[35] Henry V (1386–1422) was born at his father's castle at Monmouth in 1386, and his birth, and his most famous military victory, are commemorated in Agincourt Square in the town, and by a statue on the frontage of the Shire Hall which forms the square's centrepiece.[f][40] In Henry V's wars in France, he received strong military support from the archers of Gwent, who were famed for their skill with the Welsh bow. Gerald recorded, "the men of Gwent are more skilled with the bow and arrow than those who come from other parts of Wales".[41][g]
There was a brief reassertion of Welsh autonomy in Monmouthshire during the Glyndŵr rebellion of 1400 to 1415. Seeking to re-establish Welsh independence, the revolt began in the north, but by 1403 Owain Glyndŵr's army was in Monmouthshire, sacking Usk[43] and securing a victory over the English at Craig-y-dorth, near Cwmcarvan. According to the Annals of Owain Glyn Dwr, "there the English were killed for the most part and they were pursued up to the gates of the town" (of Monmouth).[h][44] This was the high water mark of the revolt; heavy defeats in the county followed in 1405, at the Battle of Grosmont, and at the Battle of Pwll Melyn, traditionally located near Usk Castle, where Glyndŵr's brother was killed and his eldest son captured. The chronicler Adam of Usk, a contemporary observer, noted that "from this time onward, Owain's fortunes began to wane in that region."[45]
