Near the extremity of the town, by the side of the Monnow, is the county goal, a new massive stone building, which in its plan, regulations, and superintendance, does high credit to the pubic spirit of the county. Without the town, at the foot of the Monnow-bridge, is St. Thomas’s church, a curious old structure which is supposed to have been built by the Saxons.
Monmouth is supposed by Mr. Horsley to have been a Roman station, the Blestium of Antoninus. It is a borough and corporate town, governed by a mayor, and contains about six hundred houses, and two thousand six hundred inhabitants. Woollen caps were the staple manufacture of Monmouth when that article was in general use; and Shakspeare’s Fluellen alludes to this fashion: “If your Majesty is remembered of it, the Welchmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps.” But the town has now no manufacture, although there are some iron and tin works in the neighbourhood: its commerce depends on the navigation of the Wye, in the distribution of goods between Bristol, Hereford, and adjoining districts. Yet no small part of its thriving appearance may be attributed to the numerous gentry that are induced to fix their residence here from the pleasantness of the situation.
Chippenham meadow, an agreeable plain, inclosed by the town, the Wye, and the Monnow, is the general rendezvous of Gwentonian beauty on summer (and particularly on Sunday) evenings. We had the good fortune to be in Monmouth on a Sunday, and of course did not neglect to join the promenade; where many a squire of little manors eyed us with much more inquiry than cordiality. Their dulcineas,
“Healthful and strong, full as the summer rose
Blown by prevailing suns,”
displayed the vigour of youth and Wales, and possessed decided points of feminine attraction. But who would leave London to describe female beauty?
In the vicinity of Monmouth is a remarkably high hill, called the Kymin, which rises from the banks of the Wye, on the Gloucestershire side of the river. A pleasant walk is traced to its summit, from which a wonderful range of prospect extends to a circumference of near three hundred miles. It would be tedious to enumerate the multifarious objects that present themselves in this great prospect: if any one be eminently beautiful, it is the diversified undulating vale of Monmouth, enlivened by its picturesque town and spire, and watered by the Wye, the Monnow, and the Trothy, limpidly meandering through fertile hollows, and at length uniting, in the course of the former river, at the foot of the hill. At the top of the Kymin, a handsome pavilion has been lately erected for the accommodation of parties; its summit is also adorned with a rich wood called Beaulieu grove, which, descending over part of its precipitous sides, forms its proudest ornament. Several walks cut through the wood terminate at the brow of steep declivities, commanding great and enchanting views; and which in the spring, as I am told, from the universality of apple orchards in this district, are as singular as they are beautiful.
There are several antique mansions in the neighbourhood of Monmouth that deserve notice. About a mile from the town, on the left of the road to Raglan, is Wonastow-house, formerly a residence of a branch of the Herbert family, [285] which is conjectured to have been built about the reign of Henry the Sixth. Its situation, on a gentle eminence commanding many extensive views, is extremely pleasant; and the surrounding farm-lands still bear traces of its park in several groves of ancient oaks and elms. The edifice, though much diminished in extent and divided into two distinct habitations, is still a venerable relic of the times, and contains several original family portraits. The old chapel belonging to the mansion is now applied to domestic use.
Treowen, situated about a mile further westward, to the north of the road to Raglan, was once a splendid mansion, built by Inigo Jones, and which belonged to another scion from the Herbert stock. The position of the house and grounds, now laid out in a farm, is very delightful, watered by the meandering Trothy, and still exhibiting a profusion of rich woods. Though occupied as a farmhouse, and much reduced in dimensions, the mansion continues to shew many marks of its ancient grandeur, in the spacious and decorative style of the apartments, a noble staircase of oak, and its ornamented porch.
Troy-house, standing within a mile south-east of Monmouth, near the road to Chepstow, was a residence of a further ramification of the prolific Herbert race. [287] Part of the ancient residence is visible in a Gothic gateway; but the house is of a later date, its erection being, as well as the preceding, attributed to Inigo Jones. Neither the house, though extensive, nor its situation, in a hollow near the river Trothy, possess any claim to admiration. Throughout the apartments a large collection of family pictures is arranged, which contains the portraits of many distinguished characters, but very few specimens of fine painting. In the housekeeper’s room is a curious oak chimney-piece, brought from Raglan Castle, carved with scriptural subjects; and in a room on the third floor is another ancient chimney-piece inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and curiously ornamented with devices of Love and Plenty.
About three miles further on the road to Chepstow is the village of Trelech, which is supposed to have derived its name from three druidical stones standing in a field adjoining the road, near the church. They are placed upright, or rather inclining; of different heights, varying between ten and fifteen feet; and the exterior stones are the one fourteen, and the other twenty feet distant from the middle pillar: their substance is a concretion of silicious pebbles in a calcareous bed, commonly called pudding-stone, and of which some neighbouring rocks consist. This monument of antiquity is considered to have been the supporting part of a cromlech; but the stones being so far asunder invalidates the conjecture. Various large masses of the same sort of stone in the vicinity of Trelech seem to indicate the remains of other works of the same kind.