Wye Bridge Ward, Monmouth
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| Location | Monmouth, Wales |
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| Coordinates | 51°48′46″N 2°42′45″W / 51.8127°N 2.7125°WCoordinates: 51°48′46″N 2°42′45″W / 51.8127°N 2.7125°W |
Wye Bridge Ward was one of four wards in the town of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales. Streets in the ward included St Mary's Street, Almshouse Street, St James Street, St James Square, Whitecross Street and Monk Street. The ward existed as a division of the town by the early seventeenth century, and continued into the twentieth century.
In 1804, local author and printer Charles Heath (1761–1830) published his Historical and descriptive accounts of the ancient and present state of the town of Monmouth. In it, he indicated that the borough of Monmouth was divided into four wards: Wye Bridge Ward, Castle Bailey Ward, Monnow Street Ward, and Over Monnow Ward. The same four wards were present in the mid-nineteenth century. The first of those wards, Wye Bridge Ward, was included in the 1610 map of Monmouth by cartographer and historian John Speed (c. 1552 – 1629). In the map legend, Speed referred to the ward as "Wy Brid word" (pictured). Wye Bridge Ward continued to be a division of the town of Monmouth into the twentieth century.
Keith Edward Kissack (1913–2010), author and former curator of the Nelson Museum and History Centre, indicated that, previously, if a building in Monmouth was valued at less than £10, its residents did not have to pay the poor rate. The majority of those excused from those property taxes resided in Wye Bridge Ward. This was particularly true in the area of the wharves which, by the mid nineteenth century, had evolved into a slum. The number of people who had their poor rate taxes waived peaked in 1848.
Heath indicated that Wye Bridge Ward at the turn of the nineteenth century started at the residence of the widow Myles, at the north end of St Mary's Street near the church, and extended southeast toward Wye Bridge, including St Mary's Street in its entirety. There were also some homes in proximity to the turnpike, and land in the possession of the Duke of Beaufort. Tenements and lumber yards north of Wye Bridge were part of the ward.
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