Monmouthshire

Monmouth was established around a Norman castle situated at the confluence of the rivers Monnow and Wye. It thus occupied a significant strategic and cultural position on the boundary between Wales and England. In the thirteenth century the borough passed into the hands of the house of Lancaster, and thereafter it remained a duchy possession down to 1631. The town enjoyed good trading contacts by river and land, and possessed a market by the end of the eleventh century, but suffered severely in the Glynd?r rebellion and struggled to recover economically.K.

The county town of Monmouth was situated on the Rivers Monnow and Wye between the ironworks of Wales and the coalfield of the Forest of Dean. It gave its name to, and was the polling town for, a contributory boroughs constituency of the Welsh type which, as the Commons had determined in 1680, included rapidly industrializing Newport and the small agricultural borough of Usk, 25 and 12 miles to its south-west, and excluded Abergavenny, Caerleon, Chepstow and Trellech. HP Commons, 1690-1715, ii. 407-9; CJ, ix.