England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Cwmcarvan St Cattwg

The Parish

The parish of Cwmcarvan lies in eastern Monmouthshire roughly 5 miles south of the county town of Monmouth. Cwmcarvan sits about 2 miles south of the A40 road which links Monmouth with Abergavenny. Cwmcarvan is a dispersed settlement, there are a few properties gathered around the parish church but amounting to little more than a hamlet. the remainder of this extensive parish is dotted with farmsteads and cottages with no real village centre. The landscape of the parish is strongly hilly with a wide range of altitudes and many steep slopes, this results in a mainly pastoral farming regime with early gazetteers estimating as much as 50% set to pasture with also much managed woodland in the remainder. Cwmcarvan's main historical claim to fame is as the site of a battle between Owain Glyndwr's forces and those of Henry V which resulted in a defeat for the Welsh. Cwmcarvan is drained northwards by a series of swift flowing becks to meet with the River Trothy, the Trothy turns water northeast and joins the Wye immediately south of Monmouth which follows a meandering southward trending course to reach the outer Bristol Channel though the port of Chepstow. Cwmcarvan is sited at around 100 metres above the sea by its parish church but the parish contains land as high as 250 metres and as low as 50 in strongly undulating countryside. Cwmcarvan parish was quite extensive covering just over 2,900 acres and its scattered population was as high as 300 parishioners. Like most of Wales Cwmcarvan is not listed in Domesday Book which did not cover this area.

The Church

St Cattwg's church sits on a ridge of land in a fork of lanes with commanding views over the rural landscape surrounding, other than a few cottages it stands in isolation. St Cattwg gives the appearance from the outside of being a typical late medieval Perpendicular church and indeed parts of its are readily dateable to that period. Closer examination by Pevsner reveals a more lengthy gestation, the blocked southern doorway to the nave, albeit much reworked, shows signs of 12th century Norman origin whilst in the opposite northern wall sits a trefoil-headed lancet window from the late 13th or early 14th centuries. Both the tower & chancel arches confirm the same period. The main Perpendicular feature is the western tower which Pevsner terms as "austerely impressive". Dating is fairly precise from will bequests and indicates a building period c1525, in contrast to the Old Red Sandstone of the main body the tower is in a grey ashlar, of 3 stages and carrying a northeastern stair turret which rises above its battlementation. Two phases of Victorian restoration of 1872 & 1879 made many changes to the church notably the complete rebuild of the chancel in the first phase and the replacement of many windows in the second. The forked junction is sufficiently broad to permit a car or two to park outside the iron gates of the churchyard, the church sits uncomfortably close to the southern boundary which compromises some of the favoured aspects but all other angles are available to the photographer.