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OLDCASTLE is a parish on the rivers Honddu and Monnow, at the northern extremity of Monmouthshire and westward of the road from Hereford to Abergavenny, one mile and a half north-west from Pandy station on the Newport, Abergavenny and Hereford branch of the Great Western railway, 7 miles north from Abergavenny and 17 southwest from Hereford, in the Northern division of the county, hundred , petty sessional division, union and county court district of Abergavenny, rural deanery of Abergavenny, archdeaconry of Monmouth, and diocese of Llandaff. A portion of the Black Mountains is within the parish and the Hatterall Hills are, in the neighbourhood.
The church of St. John the Baptist is a building of stone in the Gothic style, rebuilt in 1864 on the site of the ancient church, and consists of chancel, nave, north porch and a turret containing 2 bells : there are 100 sittings. The register of baptisms and burial dates from the Year 1784, marriages, 1783. The older registers have been destroyed. The living is a rectory, net yearly value �59, in the gift of Philip Bartholomew Barneby esq. and held from 1897 by the Rev. Richard Talbot Espinasse M.A. of Brasenose College, Oxford, who, is also vicar of Walterstone, Herefordshire, and resides at Pandy. There are some Roman remains here and supposed entrenchments near the church. This place, is celebrated as the residence of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, a zealous adherent of Wycliffe, after his escape from the Tower in the time of Henry the Fifth. He was attainted of heresy and burnt in St. Giles' Fields, 25th December, 1417. P. B. Barneby esq. is lord of the manor and sole landowner. The soil is loamy; subsoil, loam. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley and three-fourths pasture land. The area, is 928 acres of land and 6 of water; rateable value, �410; the population in 1891 was 57. Parish Clerk, -Alexander Garden. Letters through Abergavenny arrive about 8.15 a.m. The nearest money order office is at Pandy & telegraph at Llanvihangel Crucorney, about 4 miles distant.
Lewis John, farmer, Nant-y-Mair |