Panteg Church

-

Panteg Church

A beautiful building steeped in history. Tucked away on the eastern fringe of New Inn it is just 30 minutes walk from where I live in Griffithstown. A building has stood on this site from Norman times and possibly earlier although the church was almost completely rebuilt in the Victorian period. The embattled tower is, however, fifteenth century. Its registers date from 1598. From memory the earliest volume includes a note c 1645 that it had been hidden lest it fall into the wrong hands – a reference no doubt to the parliamentary army during the Civil War – it is this reference that has probably given rise to the claim that the church was pillaged at the time. Set in its idyllic, rural surroundings, the church’s relationship with the expanding industrial communities to the west is an interesting one. it is reflected in the letter written to the Panteg Local Board in 1879 which complained of the bad state of the road between Griffithstown and the church. Griffithstown had been developing throughout the 1860s due to the Newport to Hereford railway and boosted by the opening of Panteg Steel Works in 1873. Until 1888 there was no Anglican church in the village and no doubt many trudged across the valley to Panteg church. The letter of complaint about the road was written, indeed, by Reverend Eliot, the incumbent at Panteg. The Local Board admitted it was an ‘ancient way’ but doubted it was responsible for its upkeep. In the event they accepted the generous offer of the chair to repair it at his own expense. 
Tony Hopkins

Popular posts from this blog

The Crumlin Branch of the Monmouthshire Canal

-
Image
The Crumlin Branch of t he Monmouthshire Canal Many people have been using the canal system to carry out lockdown walks and the Crumlin branch of the canal is a favourite for people in and around Newport. Anne Dunton has sent some photographs of her daily walk during lockdown. She usually walks up to the top of Ridgeway in Newport and then takes the path down through the woods of  Allt-yr-yn Nature Reserve   to the canal . The reserve  occupies the 32 acre site of the former Allt-yr-yn House and lido, and an old stone quarry.  The lido has been turned into one of the ponds and only a few stones of the house remain .   Thus Anne is   walking through the grounds of  Allt-yr -yn house .    lt was  situated to the west of Newport and was surrounded by woodland and fields.   She remembers swimming in  Allt-yr-yn  lido  and this link is to a page from Newport Past. The lido was  opened by the Deputy-Mayor in...
Read more

Growing up in Llanarth

-
Image
Growing up in Llanarth by Peter Nash Llanarth Court: Photograph taken by Peter’s parents I was brought up in the village of Llanarth, half way though the last century. My parents had come to the village in 1949, to take up jobs as teachers in Llanarth Court in the recently opened boys’ preparatory school, Blackfriars, run by Dominicans. I was born 10 months after their arrival and my mother stopped work. We lived in the Pitt House, a 17 th Century farmhouse with a priest’s hole in the central chimney: Llanarth was and always had been a Catholic village. In 1953 mum then got a job in the village school, Clytha RC, but known to everyone locally as the Pitt School. It had two teachers, upstairs for juniors, where Eileen Badham, ruled with a rod of iron, and downstairs for Infants, where my mum held sway. There were about 40 pupils at this time. I started school, before my fourth birthday, as a dispensation for my mother.  I soon learned that the highlight of...
Read more

A Vanished Castle in Newport - Ebboth or Greenfield Castle

-
Image
A Vanished Castle in Newport Ebboth or Greenfield Castle A sketch copied from the the Tithe Map and with features such as the possible motte copied from the  OS map 25" to the mile. The existing mound is small and might not be a motte.  In March 1457 Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke and Margaret Beaufort, the thirteen year old widow of his brother Edmund, were guests of the duke of Buckingham at his castle of Ebboth (or Greenfield).   We would now call this Maesglas, part of Newport close to the river Ebbw.   So where was this castle that was fit to receive such visitors, and why not use the duke’s castle at Newport? Margaret had given birth two months earlier at Pembroke castle to her only child.   He would eventually become Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and father of Henry VIII.   She was a tiny person, the birth had apparently been difficult, and travelling was not easy.   The likely explanation is that as a rich and under age w...
Read more