The 2023 Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association AGM

-

 The Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association 2023 AGM

The MAA 2023 AGM at Caerwent. Mark Lewis talked to us about the excavation taking place outside East of the Church. Mark has been leading the community excavation at and is currently working with NMW on archaeological projects designed to enhance the understanding of the Roman period in Wales. Then at 3pm the AGM took place in the Church and reports were given by the various officers of the Committee. It was followed by a talk by Jennifer Evans who is well known to us all and those of you who have visited the NMW library at Cardiff. She is currently at Gwent Archives and is leading a project entitled

Welcome to#CrowdCymru


 

Mark Lewis talks to the group. Dr Mark Lewis : (Senior Curator: Roman) from the Amgueddfa Cymru, National Roman Legion Museum, Caerleon and a member of the MAA committee for many years. 


The excavation area outside the East of the Church


Entering the Church the MAA Journals are on display


 

Jeremy Knight our President chairs the meeting


 

Janet Baily our secretary gives her report,










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 1934 and closed  in  the mid 1960s.   Now the remains are overgrown and obscur
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 the
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 widow Margaret needed to find
Read more