Buildings and architecture

NEVILL STREET:
Most of the buildings in Nevill Street have substantial 16th century remains inside. There would have been an inn just inside each of the town gates to cater for travellers. Only The Kings Arms in Nevill Street and the Coach and Horses (once the Sun Inn) at the south gate in Cross Street now remain. The fact that the buildings were built lengthwise to the street shows that land was then more readily available than today.

The King's Arms is a typical 17th century coaching inn. At the front of the building is a coat of arms once thought to have been those of Charles II, now known to be George I. The building was originally jettied and half-timbered, but the ground floor has at sometime been built out beyond the upper floor. Inside, there are moulded beams and panelling. Until a few years ago there used to be an inscription over the fireplace which had been written by soldiers billeted there during the Napoleonic wars....

"Good quartering forever 1817.
King & 15th Huzzars
Hall Troop 24"

There were no army barracks then and soldiers were billeted around the town, frequently causing much trouble. One of the society's Blue Plaques has been put up outside the pub.

Rother House, pictured below, has a beautiful Adam style front. The pedimented doorway was wide enough to accommodate the very wide women's skirts of the time
(c. 1750). Note the imitation stonework to give an impression of strength, also the frieze under the eaves, the way the cornice was built up in front to hide the old roof so that the rain water pipes have to come through it, and the beautiful proportions of the windows.

During the mid-19th century, Rother House was refronted. Brick, not then a usual local building material, was used to build numbers 7 and 9 nearby.
Numbers 7 and 9 are interesting because of the connection with Thomas Hill who founded Blaenavon Iron Works, and whose son built the tramroad which crossed the face of the Blorenge mountain to his Llanfoist canal.

FIRST BANK:
With local backing the Hills started the first Abergavenny Bank in the downstairs room of No. 5 Nevill Street in 1790, and in the early 1800's they used No. 7 for entertaining clients who were visiting their iron works.

THE COW INN:
This was probably built about 1600 as a town house of the Vaughan family. It would then have been a half-timbered building with its gable end towards the street and its first storey jettied out beyond the first floor. Inside, a well carved Elizabethan jetty post can still be seen.

In 1780 the house become the Cow Inn and remained so until the 1860s. In this early market area there was also the Bull Inn (close to the front of the Post Office) and Annett's (now the computer shop) was once the Pied Bull Inn.

In 1780, the ground floor of the Cow Inn was built out flush with the upper storey, the height of the first floor windows was doubled and a third floor added. It's thought that the cow heads under the eaves were added at this time.

The carving from the beam supporting the jetty was cut up and placed on top of the windows and the little goats heads put on the ends to hide the cut edges. The chevron with three children's heads is the Vaughan family crest and can be seen again in the Herbert Chapel in St. Mary's. The single roses may be in remembrance of members of the Vaughan family who fought in the Wars of the Roses - on each side perhaps for there is the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York. Note also the Welsh dragon, the little fox and the letters H.L. - probably the initials of the carver.

THE FIRE PLAQUE:
The fire insurance plaque in High Street opposite Woolworths is a replica. The original came from 23 High Street, (formerly the gas showroom). It was erected by the Birmingham Fire Insurance Company in the first half of the 19th century. This company, later to become Barclays, provided Abergavenny's first Merryweather (manual) fire engine; it was used in the town until 1921. Plaques of this sort were used all over the country as a means of accurately identifying insured buildings before the days of house numbering, and indicated which brigade was responsible for fighting the fire.

Fire marks served to advertise a company's services and they represented some of the earliest examples of the advertiser's art.

GUNTER HOUSE:
This large house in Cross Street once stood just outside the medieval south gate of the town. Here lived Thomas Gunter, a Catholic and JP. The ground floor is much altered but there is still a richly decorated ceiling on the first floor. After Henry VIII's break with Rome, Catholicism was discouraged and at times actively persecuted. Yet Thomas Gunter openly boasted of large attendances at the celebration of Mass in his house.

In 1678 Titus Oats stirred up anti-Catholic action in London which spread throughout the country.

In Abergavenny, the magistrates were pressed into arresting two local priests, David Lewis, a son of the headmaster of the Abergavenny Grammar School, and Phillip Evans who both said Mass in the secret chapel in Gunter House, Cross Street.

Both priests were tried and executed. St David Lewis is buried in Usk Church graveyard. Both were canonised and there is a memorial to St David Lewis in Our Lady and St Michael's RC church in Pen-y-Pound. A history society plaque marks the house in Cross Street. The reredos mural, which adorned the altar of the Gunter house chapel, is now on display in the castle museum. The chapel and mural were only discovered during alterations in 1907, in the little attic room in the right hand gable.

Examples of the different periods of architecture in Abergavenny:
Norman: c. 1100 Font in St Mary's.
Early medieval: c. 1300 Castle towers. Foundations of town wall, St John's church (tower was rebuilt in 1750). "Cantelupe" and other tombs in St Mary's Priory.
Late medieval: c. 1450 Castle Gatehouse. Choir stalls in St Mary's, Jesse and alabaster tomb of William ap Thomas.
Tudor: c. 1500 North aisle of St Mary's c 1600 Gunter House, Market Street houses, interiors of Barnfields and 14 Nevill Street (Cow Inn).
Stuart: c 1660: Kings Arms, Nevill Street.
Queen Anne: c. 1720: Angel Hotel. Heavy gable on 13 Cross Street.
Georgian: c 1750 Rother House (11 Nevill Street) frontage. 5 & 7 Nevill Street.
Tan House. c. 1800 52 Cross Street. Most of the houses in Abergavenny were rebuilt or refronted between 1800 and 1830, due to the prosperity from the Industrial Revolution and the efforts of the Improvement Commission.
Victorian: c 1850 National Westminster Bank. c 1880 Frogmore Street Baptist Church, Barclays Bank, all the Grofield development - Abergavenny was now a railway town. 23-32 Cross Street.
Edwardian: c 1900 The shops between the Nat West Bank and the Midland Bank; Wise Owls and the Fish and Chip shop; Lloyd Bank; All highly decorated, showing the prosperity from the railway.
Modern: c 1930 South Wales Electricity Board; Burtons. c1960 Police station. Underhill Crescent; c 1985 Tudor Street Surgery.