A tour throughout South Wales and Monmouthshire

by J. T. Barber

ENTRANCE OF MONMOUTHSHIRE—ANCIENT ENCAMPMENTS—CASTLETON—TREDEGAR PARK—NEWPORT; CHURCH; AND CASTLE—EXCURSION TO MACHEN PLACE—PICTURESQUE VIEW FROM CHRIST CHURCH—GOLD CLIFF—CAERLEON’S ANTIQUITIES—ENCAMPMENTS—LORD HERBERT OF CHERBURY—LANTARNAM—LANGIBBY CASTLE.

On quitting Cardiff, we soon entered Monmouthshire [185] in crossing Rumney bridge. The church of Rumney is a large Gothic edifice, with an embattled tower. Nearly opposite to it, on the left of the road, crowning a steep bank of the river, is an old encampment of an irregular figure, with a triangular outwork; and a short distance further, at Pen-y-pile, another occurs of a polyhedrous form. As we proceeded, the elevated mansion and extensive woods of Ruperah, an elegant seat belonging to a branch of the Morgan family, appeared finely situated beneath the brow of some hills bordering the vale of Caerphilly; and on a gentle hill below it, Keven-Mable, an ancient seat of the Kemy’s family. At the rural little village of St. Mellons, the old and new roads to Newport unite: we took the latter, which is the lowermost and nearest, traced on a range of gentle eminences skirting Wentloog level, an extensive fertile plain won from the sea. This wide flat, extending from the Rumney to the Usk rivers, is relieved by the intersections of hedges and drains, and has a sprinkling of white cottages; among which the towers of St. Bride’s, Marshfield, and Peterson churches rise conspicuously. Our route passed through Castleton, where there was formerly a castle; of which, however, only a small artificial mount, the site of its citadel, now inclosed in the garden of Mr. Phillips, and a chapel converted into a barn, remain. Gwern-y-cleppa park, the next object of our attention on the road, contains a ruin nearly hidden in an interwoven thicket, once the mansion of Ivor-hael (the generous), the pride of bardish song, who flourished in the commencement of the fourteenth century.

We entered Tredegar Park in succession, a very ancient seat of the Morgan family. This park is laid out in the obsolete style of groves and avenues; but possesses great room for modern taste, in the variety of swell and hollow composing its surface, the remarkable size and beauty of the oaks and Spanish chesnuts with which it is decorated, and the picturesque course of the rapid Ebwy, whose red rocky banks form a striking contrast to the surrounding verdure. The turnpike road passes through the park, and within a few hundred yards of the mansion, a huge quadrangular brick building, of the date of Charles the Second’s reign, with a high shelving roof, in which are two or three tiers of windows, similar to the weighing-house at Amsterdam. Internally, the house is convenient and well arranged, with state and domestic apartments, several of which are preserved in their original character. The most remarkable is the oak room; the flooring of which, forty-two feet by twenty-seven, was furnished by a single oak; and the wainscoting, formed of the same material, is much admired for its antique carving. A large collection of pictures, chiefly family portraits, is distributed through the house; but few of them are valuable as specimens of art. Among the extensive offices are several remains of the ancient castellated mansion, described by Leland as “a very fair place of stone.”

The Morgan family being one of the most ancient and considerable in Wales, the ingenuity of the bards has been excited to trace its origin: some have venally derived it from Cam the second son of Noah; but others refute this position, and modestly carry it no further than his third son. Without noticing several intervening personages contended to be the founders of this family, Cadivor the great, lord of Dyfed, who died anno 1084, appears to be the only one well supported in the appointment of its great ancestor.

From Tredegar Park we immediately crossed the Ebwy by a long narrow bridge, and presently entered Newport, a dirty ill-built town nearly comprized in one long street winding down a bank of the river Usk. The eminence on which its church is situated, at the upper part of the town, affords a very fine prospect of the surrounding country; at the extremity of the town appears its ruined castle, watered by the silvery Usk: an intermixture of wood and pasture clothes the surrounding hills and valleys: the wild mountains about Pont-y-pool are strongly contrasted by the fertile tract of Wentloog and Caldecot levels, and the noble expanse of the Bristol channel backed by the cultivated hills of Somersetshire. The church exhibits the architecture of several ages: its nave comprehends the original church, which is of the oldest mode of building, and may be considered as of a date prior to the settlement of the Normans: the chancel and ailes are of later architecture. The western doorway, connected with the ancient chapel of St. Mary, now converted into a burying-place, and which was formerly the grand entrance, exhibits a curious specimen of Saxon carving, in a circular archway, with hatched and indented mouldings resting on low columns with capitals of rude foliage. The church contains three ancient monuments; but its chief ornament is the high square embattled towers built by Henry the Third, in gratitude for the attachment of the townsmen to his cause during his contest with the barons. St. Wooloo, the patron of this spot, is held in high veneration by the natives. He retired from the pride and pageantry of kinghood, to lead a life of prayer and mortification: a lowly cottage was his dwelling; sackcloth his apparel; he lived by the labour of his hands; the crystal rill afforded his only beverage, and barley bread, rendered more disrelishing by a sprinkling of ashes, his constant food. He left this world for better fare in the next about the end of the fifth century.

Newport Castle is a ruin of very inconsiderable dimensions: its quadrangular area was only defended by a simple wall, except on the side next the river, where three towers still remain in a nearly intire state. There is an octagon tower at each extremity of this side; a large square one between them, with turrets at each angle, appears to have been the citadel, and contains a vaulted apartment called the state-room; at the bottom of this tower a handsome Gothic arch forms a water-gate, which has within it the groove of a portcullis: between this and the further tower was the baronial hall, the ruins of which yet remain. The pointed arches throughout this building testify it to have been a work posterior to the Norman era; though it is certain, that there was a castle at Newport in 1173, when Owen ap Caradoc, going to treat with king Henry without arms or attendants, was basely murdered by the soldiers of Newport castle. Jowerth ap Owen, his father, in revenge for this treachery, carried fire and sword to the gates of Hereford and Gloucester. Newport was formerly encompassed with a wall; but of this there are no remains; nor of the three gates mentioned by Leland, except some small vestiges of the one next the bridge. A large Gothic building near the castle, with a stone coat of arms over the door, now occupied as a warehouse, was formerly the murringer’s [192] house. In place of an inconvenient wooden bridge, a handsome stone one of five arches has been lately executed by Mr. David Edward, son of the mason of Pont-y-pridd: a canal was also just finished at the time of our visit, reaching from Pont-y-pool, by means of which its brisk and improving trade in coals and iron is much facilitated.

On the banks of the river, a short distance below the bridge, are the remains of a house of preaching friars; consisting of the spacious refectory, part of the church, and other buildings, now converted to private uses.—About a mile further southward, near the conflux of the Usk and Ebwy, are the small vestiges of Green castle, once a considerable fortress belonging to the duke of Lancaster, and described by Churchyard, who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth, as

“A goodly seate, a tower, a princely pyle.”

We made an excursion on the road to Caerphilly, which embraces several objects not unworthy of notice. About a mile and half from Newport is the Gaer, a large encampment supposed to be Roman, occupying the brow of an eminence near the Ebwy in Tredegar park. A short distance further is the little village of Bassaleg, the approach to which is very picturesque; where the Ebwy appears struggling in its bed of red rocks, and throwing its clear stream over a weir just beneath the bridge: above it rises the church, with its embattled tower finely relieved by intervening foliage. Here, according to Tanner, was a Benedictine priory, a cell to the abbey of Glastonbury; but of this no traces are evident; unless a ruin in the deep recesses of a forest about a mile westward, called Coed-y-Monachty, or the wood of the monastery, are its remains. On the summit of a hill overgrown with coppice, about a mile from Bassaleg, near the road to Llanvihangel, is a circular encampment called Craeg-y-saesson.

From Bassaleg the country continues undulating and fertile, to the vale of Machen, where the Rumney emerges from among wild hills and overhanging forests, and sweeps through the plain: a sprinkling of white cottages enliven the scene, which receives an additional effect from its picturesque church, and the steep acclivity of Machen hill, studded all over with lime-kilns. At the opening of the vale is Machen-place, once a respectable seat of the Morgans, but now tottering in decay, and occupied as a farm-house: some memorials of faded grandeur may here be traced in a circular apartment, with a rich stuccoed cieling, called the hunting-room. A pair of andirons weighing two hundred weight, formerly employed in roasting an entire ox, and an immense oak table, may also convey an idea of the solid fare and plenty of days of yore. We pursued the road no further; but, returning through Newport [195], and crossing its bridge, took the road to Caerleon.