Monmouthshire

Monmouthshire ( Welsh: Sir Fynwy ) is one of 22 Principal Areas of Wales. Monmouthshire is also one of the thirteen traditional counties of Wales, has as such but wider limits than the present Principal Area. The administrative headquarters of Monmouthshire lies outside its borders in the city of Cwmbran in the neighboring district of Torfaen.

Geography

Monmouthshire is bordered to the south by the Bristol Channel, and on the east by the English county of Gloucestershire. The River Wye forms the border between England and Wales. Northeast joins the English county of Herefordshire. In the northwest Monmouthshire borders Powys and Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen to the west and southwest of the city of Newport.

The area of ​​the county is rural and is crossed by the rivers Usk and Wye. In the north- west of the district is a part of the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Larger towns are Abergavenny, Caldicot, Chepstow, Monmouth and Usk.

History

The historic Monmouthshire was formed in 1535, when England annexing on the laws on inclusion Wales in its jurisdiction. It was one of the thirteen counties of Wales, and included all the land between the border with England, the Brecon Beacons and the River Rhymney. In the north Monmouthshire bordered Brecknockshire, on the northeast by Herefordshire, to the east and to the west Glamorgan Gloucestershire. That it included the present-day counties of Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Caerphilly ( eastern half) and Newport, which corresponded to approximately the former kingdom of Gwent. The Bristol Channel and the River Wye Monmouthshire limited as it is today in the south and east. The county was named after its administrative seat of Monmouth.

1542 was Monmouthshire in six dog reds, smaller administrative units, divided into: Abergavenny, Caldicot, Raglan, Skenfrith, Usk and Wentloog. In addition, there was with Monmouth, Newport and Usk three boroughs, ie independent communities.

By the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 elected city councilors have been used in Monmouth and Newport. In Usk, the old system until 1886 remained. Due to the health law developed from 1848 onwards new forms of management in the urban areas. In response to cholera epidemics and local associations have been established, which should ensure, among other a regulated water supply and more cleanliness. By 1875 the rural areas were divided in the wake of this movement in so-called sanitary districts.

Monmouthshire 1889 was amended by the Local Government Act a kind of " administrative county ", which was ruled by an elected council. To the original area were added parts of southern Breconshires. The Council met in Newport and no longer in the original county seat of Monmouth. Also known as Newport County Borough in 1891, that is, a type of county-level city, and was therefore no longer belonged to Monmouthshire, it remained of the Council of Monmouthshire headquarters.

The Local Government Act of 1894 divided Monmouthshire based on the sanitary districts in urban and rural districts.

Until 1974, when the administrative county of Monmouthshire and the county borough Newport were resolved in favor of the new county of Gwent, the boundaries hardly changed. Gwent consisted of the five Districts Newport, Islwyn, Monmouth, Gwent Torfaen and Blaeneau.

In the administrative reform of 1996 Gwent and its Districts were dissolved. A new Principal Area of Monmouthshire was formed as part of the introduction of the one-step local government of the District Monmouth and parts of Districts Blaenau Gwent. Today's administrative district, which has the status of a county, comprises about 60 % of the area of the historic county, but only 20 % of its population.

Local election results

Attractions

Monmouthshire has the Wye Valley is an " area of ​​outstanding natural beauty". The Wye, Britain's fifth- longest river flows on the border between Wales and England, and forms between Monmouth and its estuary, the historical border between the countries. Besides its natural beauty can be found in the river valley traces of early prehistoric humans.

In the village Trellech that was once one of the major Welsh cities in the Middle Ages, for example, is a row of standing stones from the Bronze Age, the Harold's Stones. In addition, archaeological excavations there take place to expose the remains of the destroyed historic city.

That Monmouthshire as part of the Welsh Marches, ie the border region between Wales and England, was in the course of centuries the scene of many conflicts that show the many castles and ruins along the Wyes, eg Chepstow Castle, the oldest fortress of Great Britain, the "Three Castles" White Castle, Grosmont Castle and Skenfrith Castle, or the medieval Raglan Castle.