Cwmyoy, Gwent

Mill Cottage and the Harrisons

The Llanthony Post Office was originally the Mill Cottage and my great great great grandparents George and Margaret Harrison lived there. Just across the track from there was the Mill which was three storeys high, and George was the Miller of Llanthony. They lived there, as recorded in the cenus's of 1841 through to 1861, and from then on their daughter Margaret lived there with her husband Daniel Nichols, who was a carpenter.

Favourite outing

My family and I often walked to the River Usk, going down Pentre Road and crossing the Brecon Road. We used to have picnics on the side nearest St. Mary's church in Llanwenarth, and look in the water for tiny fish and insects. I particularly liked the flowers I found in the meadows nearby and picked large bunches to take back to my grandparents' house. On the banks grew quantities of a flower I now know to be called "Jumping Jack, "Touch-me-not" or "policeman's helmet", but which I called a "netflower". At one point there was a chain ferry, with a sort of flat punt-like boat, and it was fun crossing the river in it.

Abergavenny "Mountains"

The Deri, Rholben, Llanwenarth Breast, Big Skirrid, Little Skirrid etc. would be regarded as hills when compared to the mountains in Germany and Switzerland, but for us children they were real mountains, and we loved climbing them. This view of the Deri was practically the same as the one we had from our grandmother's garden in Albany Road, and in the foreground the cricket ground can be seen.

Town Hall

I think this a picture of Abergavenny Town Hall, but am not sure. When we were staying in Abergavenny we lived outside, in Albany Road, on the way to the Rholben and the Deri, which we often climbed and as we didn't go into the town awfully much, only when my mother needed something, I have only vague memories of it. My great-grandfather Williams was Mayor of Abergavenny in 1905, and he wrote an autograph in my grandmother's album, which I still have. My mother's mother's family originally came from Abergavenny, which is why my grandparents went to live there after my mother married in 1934.