SIR,

Recently at a French exhibition of several hundred photographs of spectacular bridges, we searched possessively for the Monnow Bridge ready to tell anyone in earshot all about it.

But there was no sign of our unique monument.

Britain was represented by inferior specimens (Ironbridge, the Forth Bridge etc).

If it can feature in a virtual comic book, why not in a serious international exhibition which all those tourism and regeneration officers in Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) should have supported?

Perhaps they were too busy cooking up the Meend Farm project.

Monmouth has centuries of dramatic history with more uncovered regularly by our archaeologists.

Yet the depressing underused Shire Hall spends thousands of pounds dramatising and promoting a quaint obsession with the Chartists' few days when relocated there from Newport for a trial, in which few Monmothians participated.

Then as now, the fear aroused by rioting led to excessive sentences, later commuted – although Port Arthur is a depressing place, even for political prisoners, after serving time in Tasmania some of them became prosperous and rich.

Will the recent rioters be sprinkled with the same romance 150 years from now?

How relevant are the Chartists' riots now?

Trade Union membership is declining and turnout at all elections is shamefully low.

Surely MCC should focus on our more lasting and creditable heritage.

Kirstie Buckland

(Monmouth)