HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR DATABASE

The Highlights page is a changing showcase for individual documents or items on the website that members of our Study Group pick from time to time as having particular merit, interest or importance. Our choices of highlights are informed by user feedback we receive through the contact page of the website as well as by our own detailed knowledge of the site contents.

Users may already be familiar with the many ways of finding documents and other items of interest on the History of Ewyas Lacy website.  Personal names, places and topics can be searched simply by using the ‘Search’ box at the top of each page. You can also find a great many aids for searches or browsing in each of the main groupings on the home page, not forgetting ‘Quick Links’ for some of the major subject areas.

This Highlights page adds to these resources by pointing directly to a few specific landmark items that in our judgement are significant to the history of Ewyas Lacy and the surrounding area, and may therefore also suggest further fruitful avenues for study. The selections are changed periodically to open new windows into our website and to point to recent additions.

RECORDS

The Marquess of Abergavenny and his ancestors in the Nevill family held large parts of the manor of Ewyas Lacy from the fifteenth century until their Herefordshire estates were disposed of in the 1920s. Their estate documents are now held at Gwent Archives, and for the convenience of researchers we have added an extract of the catalogue of relevant items held there.

In another significant development, we have added the entire records of the Craswall Grandmontine Society to our database to preserve their archive following their disbandment.

We continue to expand our Collection of sale particulars relating to properties of historical interest throughout the Ewyas Lacy parishes. These provide important insights into how they have evolved and developed over time.

RESEARCH

Recent research initiatives include several studies of transport networks in and around the area. A paper on The Roads of Ewyas Lacy looks at the evolution of local roads from prehistoric times to the present day, while examination of the growth of railways in the neighbourhood includes articles on Early Tramroads , the Monnow Valley Railway , and the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway in addition to our previous extensive coverage of the Golden Valley Railway .  

In lighter vein, other transport-related studies include Speed Trials by the Wye Valley Motor Club at Michaelchurch Court, a review of Lord of the Manor Randolph Trafford’s Cars , some insights into Motor Cycle and Jalopy Racing locally in the nineteen fifties and sixties, and an early proposal to build a Longtown Canal .  Our transport portfolio is completed with coverage of pioneering aviation developments locally in the 1930s in the paper Randolph Trafford – The Flying Years.

Elsewhere, family histories are a popular avenue of research on our website, and we have added guest contributions showing family trees for some prominent local gentry including the Delahays in the Golden Valley and the Thomas Family at Michaelchurch Court .

DIGITAL ARCHIVE
 

Much of the ongoing growth in our database now centres on our digital archive. In the documents section we have added comprehensive wartime data on local agriculture and farms from the National Farm Survey and Agricultural Returns for the Longtown parish in the early 1940s. Also featured are the full reports of the Olchon Development Project in 1999, and survey reports on Clifford Castle , Snodhill Castle and Longtown Castle .

The photographs section has been boosted with the Hillaby Collection of images of Craswall Grandmontine Priory and various archaeological digs there, together with additions to the Jenkins Collection illustrating local life and activities in the early 1900s.

Elsewhere newspaper cuttings from the nineteenth century describe how the Ewyas Lacy Agricultural Society aimed to revolutionise local agriculture, and a cutting from 1815 reveals a mysterious “clover engine” at Michaelchurch Mill .