YOUNG ALHS
HOUSE MARKS
You may have seen different sorts of decoration on the shops and buildings in Abergavenny. Plaques like the cherubs on The Coffee Pot in Nevill Street were probably put up just because they looked pretty. But the boar’s head over the archway at the bottom of Cross Street, by Balti Delight, is there because the Blue Boar Inn used to be down the alleyway, although we think there may have been butcher’s shops there at some stage too.
Some marks were put on houses to show who built and owned them. The Estate of the Marquess of Abergavenny put marks on a number of their buildings using symbols from the Nevill coat of arms. On the house next to Nevill Hall Hospital you can see a selection of the marks used – the ‘A’ for Abergavenny, a crown, a portcullis, a rose and a bull wearing a crown as a collar. On the old Nevill Hall gate house (to the left of the hospital entrance) there is a mark over the door showing the bull.
Nearer into town but still on the Brecon Road, there is a lovely ornate ‘A’ on the stone house by the entrance to The Knoll. Coming back into town you can find five of the Abergavenny marks on the houses in Pant Lane and there are two in Tudor Street. Have you seen all these house marks?
These are all the Abergavenny Estate house marks that we know about. If you spot others around town then please tell us where they are.
