WORKMEN investigating the exit to Glendower Street car park found the reason the tarmac was bowing.

Long before Monmouth needed a car park, the area was known as Addis’s Gardens, and the1830 map of the area showed houses on the site, and in the middle of the exit to the car park was an old cellar which had been filled in with rubble when the houses were demolished. Over the years, the infill had settled and the tarmac surface slowly sank.

Archaeologist Steve Clarke says he can remember sheep grazing that area, but the houses had gone by then.

Although no significant finds were made, it was another reminder of Monmouth’s past settlement, although this would have been early 19th century history coming to light.