I blogged a little last week about the Great Flood of 1606 and the water-height marker set into a stone on the wall of Saint Thomas the Apostle at Redwick, Monmouthshire.

I’m a big fan of local history; you’ll often find me trudging my way around Monmouth’s villages, Celtic hill forts, Roman remains, post-Romano historic sites, our industrial past and waterways.

Churches are a favourite place to visit and luckily for me there are lots of interesting old churches around Wales and quite a few in my local area. I'm always attraced by those stuck in the middle of fields, some distance from any modern highway.

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This particular church is located in the hamlet of Little Porton, within the parish boundary of Goldcliff, Monmouthshire.

County records tell of the tragedy of the Great Flood in 1606, but also indicate the Goldcliff church, Saint Mary Magdalene, was built around 1424 from remaining rubble, when Goldcliff priory was destroyed by a flood.

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This particular church is not Saint Mary Magdalene however and there appears to be very little information appertaining to it. The church appears to be still in use although it is in a sad state of repair.

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Research into the parish of Goldcliff provides us with some interesting information.

William Camden (1551-1623) in his Britannia discusses my own area, which he calls Wondy, then goes on to tell us:

Beneath this lieth spred for many miles togither a mersh, they call it the Moore, which when I lately revised this worke, suffered a lamentable losse. For when the Severn sea at a spring tide in the change of the Moone, what beeing driven backe for three daies together with a Southwest winde, and what with a verie strong pirrie [squall] from the sea troubling it, swelled and raged so high that with surging billowes it came rolling and in-rushing amaine upon this tract lying so low, as also upon the like states in Somersetshire over against it, that it overflowed all, subverted houses and drowned a number of beasts, and some people withall. Where this mersh coast bearing out by little and little runneth forth into the sea, in the verie point thereof standeth Goldclyffe aloft, that is, as Giraldus saith, A Golden cliffe, so called because the stones there, of a golden colour by reverberation of the Sunne shining full upon them glitter with a wonderfull brightnesse; neither can I bee easilie perswaded (saith hee) that Nature hath given this brightnesse in vaine unto the stones, and that there should bee a flowre heere without fruit, were there any man that would serch into the veines there, and, using the direction of Art, enter in the inmost and secretest bowels of the Earth.

While Gerald of Wales says:

Not far hence is a rocky eminence, impending over the Severn, called by the English Gouldcliffe68 or golden rock, because from the reflections of the sun's rays it assumes a bright golden colour:

"Nec mihi de facili fieri persuasio posset,
Quod frustra tantum dederit natura nito rem
Saxis, quodque suo fuerit flos hic sine fructu."

Nor can I be easily persuaded that nature hath given such splendour to the rocks in vain, and that this flower should be without fruit, if any one would take the pains to penetrate deeply into the bowels of the earth; if any one, I say, would extract honey from the rock, and oil from the stone. Indeed many riches of nature lie concealed through inattention, which the diligence of posterity will bring to light; for, as necessity first taught the ancients to discover the conveniences of life, so industry, and a greater acuteness of intellect, have laid open many things to the moderns; as the poet says, assigning two causes for these discoveries,

" - labor omnia vincit Improbus, et duris urgens in rebus egestas."

So now we know how Goldcliff got its name, let’s examine a few facts and figures about the area.

GOLDCLIFF is a parish on the Bristol channel, 3½ miles south from Llanwern station on the South Wales section of the Great Western railway, 149½ from London, and 6 south-east from Newport, in the Southern division of the county, Lower division of Caldicot hundred, petty sessional division of Christchurch, union and county court district of Newport, rural deanery of Caerleon, archdeaconry of Monmouth and diocese of Llandaff.

A high sea wall, erected to prevent the irruption of the tide, skirts one side of the parish. The church of St. Mary Magdalene is an ancient building of stone in the Early Englsh style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing one bell. In the chancel there is a mural brass thus inscribed :-

"On the 20th day of January, 1606, even as it came to pass, it
pleased God the flood did flow to the edge of this same brass,
and in this parish there was lost £5,000 in stock &c.
besides 22 people was in this parish drowned."
Goldcliffe: John Wilkins of Pill Row and William Tap,
Churchwardens, 1609

The church has 90 sittings. The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1728, and that of marriages from 1729. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £95, with 38 acres of glebe, in the gift of Eton College.

On Goldcliff hill, and about a mile from the church, are the remains of the Benedictine, priory of SS. Mary and Mary Magdalene, founded in 1113 by Robert Chandos. It was first a cell of the French abbey of Bec, and afterwards of Tewkesbury. The Welsh drove out the monks between 1442 and 1446. The revenues were estimated at £114 yearly.

A Chapelry is established at Porton circa 1120.

The principal landowners are the Provost and Fellows of Eton College, who are the lords of the manor, Messrs. Power, lords of Porton, Messrs. Henry Oakley, Thomas Jacob Jones, Alfred Jones, St. John Knox Rickards Phillips esq. of Whitson Court, and G. C. Williams esq. of St. Mellon's.

Further research tells us that in 1901 letters through Newport arrive at 9 a.m.; dispatched at 5 p.m. The nearest money order office is at Pillgwenlly.

Pillgwenlly, about 4 miles distant, is also the nearest telegraph office for collection, but Newport Docks is nearest for delivery, about 5 miles distant.

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At this time I am able to go no further. This interesting old church at Little Porton must be tied to the Chapelry mentioned above and established back in the 1100s.

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Just how old the church itself is I cannot tell. For clarity: a Chapelry is the district attached to a chapel; a division of a large or populous parish which has its own parochial or district chapel.

If you've read and enjoyed my historical rambling let me know: there are lots of other interesting sites I could ramble about... :))