Select Page

Penpergwm

Penpergwm is a village in south Wales, situated along the A40 road, 3.9 miles (6.3 km) south-east of Abergavenny and 14 miles (23 km) west of Monmouth. The site of Castell Arnallt lies on a mound in the water meadows between the village and the River Usk.[1]

The village used to have to a railway station on the Welsh Marches Line, but it closed in 1958.[2][3] The former station house is now a private residence.[4] The former British politician Francis Pym was born in Penpergwm Lodge in the village.[5]

Description

Penpergwm is a roadside village in Monmouthshire lying on the A40 road between Abergavenny and Raglan. Its ribbon of houses occupies a low spur of Old Red Sandstone beside the flood-meadows of the River Usk, with the Black Mountains closing the skyline to the north-west.[6] A minor lane drops south-east to the medieval earthwork of Castell Arnallt, a well-preserved circular motte 6 m high that commanded the Usk crossing and is now a scheduled monument.[7]

The manorial centre passed in the eighteenth century to the Nightingale family, whose estate map of 1760 shows a cluster of farms and a coaching inn called the Bridge House. Estate fragmentation after 1918 allowed local architect Henry Avray Tipping to buy the Home Farm and create Penpergwm Lodge, a small arts-and-crafts house set in five hectares of formal terraces and specimen trees; Cadw lists the gardens at Grade II for their accomplished early-twentieth-century design.[8]

Penpergwm gained a station on the Welsh Marches line when the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford Railway opened in 1854. The modest brick buildings were replaced by Great Western Railway timber huts after a fire in 1911, but declining passenger numbers led to closure on 5 January 1958; the former station house survives in private use and the double-track main line still carries hourly services between Cardiff and Manchester.[9]

A census output area centred on the village recorded 172 residents in 68 households in 2021, with 34 per cent able to speak Welsh and 27 per cent aged over sixty-five.[6] Penpergwm today supports a nursery garden, a touring-caravan site and a cluster of holiday cottages, while commuters use the nearby A40 and rail station at Abergavenny four miles to the north-west. The former Conservative cabinet minister Francis Pym, Baron Pym (1922–2008) was born at Penpergwm Lodge; his family retained the property until after the Second World War.[10]

References

  1. ^ "Castle Arnold". Coflein. Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  2. ^ Rogers, Mick. "70013 at Penpergwm". railwayherald.com. Railway Herald. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  3. ^ Barrie, D.S.M. (31 March 1994). A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: South Wales (2nd ed.). Cornwall: Atlantic Transport Publishers. p. 82. ISBN 9780946537693.
  4. ^ "Road to Station House, Penpergwm". geograph.org.uk. Geograph Britain and Ireland. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  5. ^ Theakston, Kevin (2 July 2004). British Foreign Secretaries Since 1974. London: Routledge. p. 141. ISBN 9780714656564. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
  6. ^ a b "Penpergwm". Ordnance Survey. Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
  7. ^ "Castell Arnallt motte". Cadw. 30 June 1993. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
  8. ^ "Penpergwm Lodge". Cadw. 1 February 2022. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
  9. ^ "Penpergwm Station". Disused Stations. Subterranea Britannica. Retrieved 30 April 2025.
  10. ^ Butler, David (2024). "Pym, Francis Leslie". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8.