Another in my series on local history. Garden subscribers will inevitably get these and I hope won’t mind. If you are interested in the local history you can get any new posts by subscribing. (But you will also get the garden blog posts too!) There will inevitably be some overlap between different posts, which I hope won’t irritate too much.
The Veddw is a small settlement in the countryside, surrounded by woodland. Don’t be misled by the idea of ‘villages’ in Monmouthshire – it is predominantly a landscape of small settlements of about a dozen or so houses. The villages are relatively recently created and reinforced by 20th century planning preoccupations.
At some point the Veddw may have been taken out of the woodland, but the Ordnance Survey sketch map, from 1812, calls that which is now Upper Veddw or Upper Fedw, ‘Haddon brake’.
Place names are dodgy things, always ready to deceive the imaginative and unwary, but I take this to indicate heathland from Old English hǣð, and hill from Old English dun, (see here and also The Landscape of Place-Names, Gelling and Cole 2003 p164). The brake would be rough land or field. You may have trouble reading ‘Haddon brake’ on the reproduction of the sketch map below, but believe me, I have examined it minutely. Please don’t ask me why this bit of Wales has an Old English name slipping in, but do always remember that we are on the English/Welsh border here, and that impinges on a great many things, as we shall see.
We went for a walk today to find Haddon brake, along the interesting old hollow way which it appears to be south of.
And remarkably the trees in what would have been the brake are predominantly hardwood:
whereas to the other side of the lane they are predominantly conifer.
I’ll write more about this holloway in another post.
The name Haddon brake has totally vanished when the first Ordnance Survey is published in 1830. But you’ll find many other ‘brakes’ referred to here.
The ‘Green’ which you can just make out below Haddon brake on the Sketch Map is the end bit of ‘Devauden Green’ which has now become ‘Devauden’. And that is a name with its own fascination. I expect it conjures up an image of bucolic locals dancing round a maypole, but that’s not quite it. In fact, it’s more interesting than that – I have no doubt it refers to the existence of a squatter settlement.
Paul Courtney (in his thesis ‘The Rural Landscape of Eastern and Lower Gwent; 1983, page 345) says “In addition to village greens, the term ‘green’ was often applied to small areas of common or wood……Such greens often gave their name to small squatter settlements. ….These take the form of small scatters of cottages often at road junctions or crossroads.”
I have also come across the use ‘Veddw Green’. I will shortly write a piece about the squatters and the Veddw.
Meanwhile – the name ‘Devauden’ is popularly supposed to mean something to do with beech trees. However, I heard differently from the much respected Frank Olding. He thinks as follows:
‘The original Welsh version was “Dyfawden”/”Defawden” with its root in Medieval Welsh “defawd”, Modern Welsh “defod” (custom, manner, fashion”) – therefore “custom land” or “customary land”, though as the Dictionary of Welsh Place-names says: “what defod . . . signified is a mystery, unless it be an obscure legal term”. The meaning seems to me likely to be something like “land held by custom” or “land held by customary tenure”.’
So that still leaves us with a few questions, as yet unanswered, about what custom, when and whose?
There’s an interesting lane which leaves Devauden just to the right of the ex pub, called variously Coal Lane, Coal Road and surprisingly Cole Lane. The ‘coal’ refers to charcoal which was brought from Wentwood down Coal Lane on mules to the forge down near Tintern.
This traffic, in addition to the traffic from Chepstow to Monmouth and Raglan coming from round both sides of Chepstow Park Wood, would account for the existence of the current village green, which would, before tarmac, have been a vast mud patch for much of the time.
The steep hill between the Veddw and Devauden is known as Trap Pitch. I don’t know why ‘Trap’ but Pitch is simply a steep hill, and it certainly is that.
Next time I’ll write about the name Veddw. That’ll cause trouble……
You refer to the lane passing past the Masons Arms as occasionally being referred to as Cole Lane. This may have been due to my great grandparents having lived for a number of years in a cottage near the bottom of this lane. Their surname was Cole. They had two sons Reginald and Ronald, the latter being my grandfather, married to Enid, who lived their entire married lives in Wesley Way, Devauden. My grandmother, Enid, was a Devauden girl from early childhood and well known in the village, as former school secretary, organiser of many events, including a huge amount of involvement in the village fete, OAPs, etc. Sadly they are both now passed (2016 & 2017).
All that is really good to know – thank you for this. I’m glad to think too that others who read my post will hear about your family connection – as long as the internet keeps it all going. I imagine you must have photographs and perhaps more to tell, given the extent of your family’s connection with Devauden?
I always knew it as “Trap’s Pitch” and imagined it with a Horse and Trap pelting down the hill on a dark night. Mrs Peak used to live in Trap farm when I was a Veddw girl in the 70s.
Great to meet a Veddw girl from the 70’s – I’d love to hear more about the place then if you can spare me the time? I have never thought much about the origin of ‘Trap’ and that could be interesting. Love your imagining!
Well I still think of myself as a Veddw girl (of 46 years!!!) and didn’t leave until 2000. Rob & Jesnette’s daughter x
I wondered if it was you! I thought there couldn’t be too many Rebeccas from the Veddw. (Bet you have memories and photos that would be good for this archive of Veddw history I’m trying to create on our website. Hint…)