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of the little river Gavenny, or Kenvy as it is called, with the river Usk, and thus 

 gets its name. It is a bright and pleasant town, and its situation is excellent. It 

 has the Pen-y-Vale hills to the north— as that range of the Black Mountains is 

 called— the massive Blorenge to the west, the Scyrrid Mountains to the east, and 

 before it, the opening valley of the Usk. It has considerable remains of its 

 Castle and town walls, its Priory and Priory Church, with so fine a series of 

 monumental effigies as to delight the heart of an archseologist. It has, moreover 

 a history that few towns can equal, and more ancient than all these remains. Its 

 existence, indeed, is prehistoric, for tradition tells of a British town and fortress 

 before the Romans came. That Abergavenny was the Roman station Gobannium 

 is beyond doubt ; for though it seems that but few Roman remains have been 

 found, its name and locality are clearly pointed out in the 12th journey of Anto- 

 nine from Silurum (Caerleon) to Uriconium (Wroxeter), called by Sir Richard 

 Colt Hoare the Via Orientalis of Antonine. The distance from Burrium (Usk) 

 to Gobannium (Abergavenny) is there marked 12 miles ; and from Gobannium 

 to Magnis (Kenchester, five miles from Hereford,) the distance is 22 miles. There 

 exists here also very curious evidence of the Roman occupation of Abergavenny 

 and its district, in the names of two neighbouring villages. The parish of Llan- 

 wenarth is divided by the river Usk, and the portion on the left bank of the river, 

 nearest to Abergavenny, still bears the distinctive Roman appellation Llanwenarth 

 citra, whilst the portion of the parish on the far side of the river retains the name 

 of Llanwenarth ultra. The parish of Llandeilo Bertholly, similarly divided by 

 the river Gavenny, has also its two portions distinguished by the same Latin 

 terms, citra and ultra. 



Abergavenny was one ot the early baronies created after the Norman Con- 

 quest. Hameline, the son of Dru de Baladun, or Belun, one of the great Norman 

 chieftains, is stated to have subdued Overwent, and to have built a fortress at 

 Abergavenny, and founded there a Priory of Benedictine monks. He died 

 without issue in 1090, and left the Castle to his nephew Brien de Wallingford, 

 or de ITsle. This gives the date of the first building of the castle, and the 

 foundation of the priory, and here may be said to begin the real history of Aber- 

 gavenny. It becomes more clear in the lives and deeds of the great lords and 

 barons represented by the effigies in the church, but it would require a volume to 

 enter into it. At the present time we will only add that, like all other history, it 

 is made up of a tissue of successes and reverses, and that the spirit of its residents 

 has ever been marked by a sturdy independence that has borne the one and the 

 other with equanimity. 



Abergavenny three centuries since was perhaps a place of greater trade and 

 importance than it is at the present time. Leland called it "a faire waulled town, 

 meately well inhabited." It was a corporate town, too, up to the beginning of 

 the reign of William III. (c. 1690), when the charter was forfeited in consequence 

 of the disaffection of its inhabitants to the new Government, as shown by violent 

 tumults at the election of a bailiff. From this time it began to decline in im- 

 portance. Its inhabitants took up successively and successfully the manufacture 

 of flannel, of longcloth, and of shoes ; but as roads opened up the country, and 



