Usk is a town and community in Monmouthshire, Wales, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Newport. It is located on the River Usk, which is spanned by an arched stone bridge at the western entrance to the town. Usk Castle, above the town, overlooks the ancient crossing point. It developed as a small market town, with some industry including the making of Japanware, and with a notable prison built in 1841–42. In recent years, Usk has become known for its history of success in Britain in Bloom competitions, winning the "Wales in Bloom" competition 35 times in a row between 1982 and 2016. The resident population of the town in 2011 was 2,834, decreasing to roughly 2,600 in 2021. 6.8% of the population are recorded as being able to speak Welsh.
Newport is a city and county borough in Wales, situated on the River Usk close to its confluence with the Severn Estuary, 12 mi (19 km) northeast of Cardiff. The population grew considerably between the 2011 and the 2021 census, rising from 145,700 to 159,587, the largest growth of any unitary authority in Wales. Newport is the third-largest principal authority with city status in Wales, and sixth most populous overall. Newport became a unitary authority in 1996 and forms part of the Cardiff-Newport metropolitan area, and the Cardiff Capital Region.
Monmouthshire is a county in the south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the south, and Torfaen, Newport and Blaenau Gwent to the west. The largest town is Abergavenny, and the administrative centre is Usk.
Chepstow Castle at Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, is the oldest surviving post-Roman stone fortification in Britain. Located above cliffs on the River Wye, construction began in 1067 under the instruction of the Norman Lord William FitzOsbern. Originally known as Striguil, it was the southernmost of a chain of castles built in the Welsh Marches, and with its attached lordship took the name of the adjoining market town in about the 14th century.
Llanvair Discoed is a small village in Monmouthshire, south-east Wales, 6 miles west of Chepstow and 10 miles east of Newport.
Abergavenny Castle is a ruined castle in the market town of Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, established by the Norman lord Hamelin de Balun c. 1087. It was the site of a massacre of Welsh noblemen in 1175, and was attacked during the early 15th-century Glyndŵr Rising. William Camden, the 16th-century antiquary, said that the castle "has been oftner stain'd with the infamy of treachery, than any other castle in Wales."
Gwent was a medieval Welsh kingdom, lying between the Rivers Wye and Usk. It existed from the end of Roman rule in Britain in about the 5th century until the Norman invasion of Wales in the 11th century. Along with its neighbour Glywyssing, it seems to have had a great deal of cultural continuity with the earlier Silures, keeping their own courts and diocese separate from the rest of Wales until their conquest by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Although it recovered its independence after his death in 1063, Gwent was the first of the Welsh kingdoms to be overrun following the Norman conquest.
Dingestow is a small village in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is located 4 miles (6.4 km) south-west of Monmouth and approximately the same distance north-east of Raglan in rural Monmouthshire. The River Trothy passes through the village.
Llangwm is a small rural village and former community, now in the community of Llantrisant Fawr, in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It is located 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Usk, on the B4235 Chepstow to Usk road. The main village is at Llangwm Uchaf, with a smaller and more dispersed settlement about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the north-east at Llangwm Isaf .The other settlement in the community is Llansoy. In 2022 the community was abolished and merged with Llantrisant Fawr.
Llantrisant is a village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, United Kingdom. The community population at the 2011 census was 475.
Newchurch is an extensive rural parish and small hamlet in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. It is located 6 miles south east of Usk and 6 miles north west of Chepstow, between the B4235 and B4293 roads.
Monmouth Castle is a castle close to the centre of the town of Monmouth, the county town of Monmouthshire, on a hill above the River Monnow in south-east Wales.
The site of Castell Arnallt, sometimes known as Castle Arnold, is located near the village of Llanover in the Usk valley of Monmouthshire, Wales, some 4 miles (6.4 km) south east of Abergavenny. It was the fortified court house, or llys, of Seisyll ap Dyfnwal, lord of Over Gwent or Gwent Uwchcoed, before it was destroyed after Seisyll and some of his household were killed at Abergavenny Castle by William de Braose in 1175. The land is now in agricultural use, with no remains visible.
Monmouthshire is a county and principal area of Wales. It borders Torfaen and Newport to the west; Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east; and Powys to the north. The largest town is Abergavenny, with the other major towns being Chepstow, Monmouth, and Usk. The county is 850 km2 in extent, with a population of 95,200 as of 2020. The present county was formed under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, which came into effect in 1996, and comprises some sixty percent of the historic county. Between 1974 and 1996, the county was known by the ancient title of Gwent, recalling the medieval Welsh kingdom. In his essay on local government in the fifth and final volume of the Gwent County History, Robert McCloy suggests that the governance of "no county in the United Kingdom in the twentieth century was so transformed as that of Monmouthshire".
Pencoed Castle is a ruined Tudor mansion, largely dating from the 16th century, in the parish of Llanmartin, now within the city of Newport, south Wales. It is located about 0.5 miles (0.80 km) east of Llanmartin village, and 0.5 miles (0.80 km) south-east of Llandevaud, at the end of a farm lane.
Tregrug Castle or Llangibby Castle is a ruin in Monmouthshire, Wales, located about 1 mile (1.5 km) to the north of the village of Llangybi, close to the settlement of Tregrug.
Castell Meredydd, also called Castell Machen, was a castle in Gwynllwg, Wales in the 13th century, long since ruined.
The Priory Church of St Mary is the parish church of Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales. Its origin was as the church of Usk Priory, a Benedictine nunnery founded by Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke in the twelfth century. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the church became the parish church of the town. Extended and restored in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was again restored in 1899–1900. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1974.
The Church of St Jerome stands in the settlement of Llangwm Uchaf, (upper) Llangwm, in a remote part of Monmouthshire, Wales. Originally constructed in the twelfth century, in an Early English style, it was heavily restored in the nineteenth century. The church has a "large and unusual" tower, an "outstanding" late medieval rood screen and Victorian interior fittings of "exceptional quality". After being declared redundant by the Church in Wales, the church is now administered by the Friends of Friendless Churches. It was designated a Grade I listed building on 19 August 1955.
Allt-y-Bela in Llangwm, Monmouthshire, Wales, is a house of late medieval origin with additions from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. During the early seventeenth century, it was owned by Roger Edwards, a wealthy Midlands merchant and the founder of Usk Grammar School. Edwards made significant alterations in the Renaissance style to the medieval cruck house. By the twentieth century, the house was in ruins until restored by the Spitalfields Historic Buildings Trust in the early twenty-first century. Now owned by the garden designer Arne Maynard, the house is a Grade II* listed building recognising its significance as an "exceptionally important sub-medieval house with ambitious early renaissance additions".
