Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association Blog

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 1934 and closed  in  the mid 1960s.   Now the remains are overgrown and obscur

The Iron Age in the Abergavenny Area: a brief overview  By Gill Wakley What strikes anyone viewing the landscape around Abergavenny is the number of hills. If you look at the sketch map from Gwent County History (GCH page 141) there is a lack of hillforts close to Abergavenny and the hillforts on the map tend to overlook the coast and river valleys which were major routes of transportation. Surprisingly this map does not show many iron age settlements in the Abergavenny area which is situated on the Usk between Twyn y Gaer Hillfort to the north and Coed y Bwnydd hillfort to the south. In Wales there were over 1000 monuments that could be termed Iron Age   hillforts . This is a map in an article by Ray Howell and Joshua Pollard, 'The Iron Age Settlement and Material Culture' in  The Gwent County History,  Vol. I, p.141. Fig. 6.1 Iron Age hillforts in Gwent (Tony Daly, National Museums and Galleries of Wales).Apart from Twyn y Gaer and Coed y Bwnydd the map also

Octavius Morgan, an  Antiquarian with a passion for Collection and Curation.   By Mary Evans In early February before lockdown would radically affect our way of life I joined a group of National Trust volunteers from Tredegar House on a visit to the British Museum.   The morning was given over to a guided tour of the Horological Collection with one of its curators Oliver Cooke. We were accorded this privilege because of the connection between Tredegar House and one of the Collection’s most significant benefactors, Charles Octavius Swinnerton Morgan. Charles Octavius Swinnerton Morgan (1803-1888)   David H Williams, ‘Octavius Morgan, Antiquarian and  Politician’.  The Monmouthshire Antiquary,  Vol XIII (1997) pp. 13-17. Known as Octavius Morgan he was the fourth son of Sir Charles Morgan 2 nd Baronet (1760-1846) and Mary (née Stoney). This rare picture of him is featured in a profile by David H.Williams.  Until 1839 he lived at Tredegar House, for over 500