The profound changes that wracked south Wales in the nineteenth century did not leave the seemingly timeless Black Mountains untouched.

On Friday, Oliver Fairclough will be giving a talk to Monmouth Field and History Society about how the social, political and economic changes that swept the country transformed the Llanthony Valley too..The remoteness of Llanthony, which once made it so attractive to the monks who founded the priory and today is one of the reasons it is so popular with visitors, saved it from the new railways that ran past its mouth to Hereford and up the Golden Valley and from the industry encouraged by the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, but it was no protection to its way of life when cheap food started flooding in from America and Australia from the 1870s.Marginal land was abandoned and people moved away. Cultural change was similarly massive. Religious non-conformity grew rapidly. Another big factor was elementary education, conducted in English, became compulsory in 1880.Against this backdrop were big characters like the poet Walter Savage Landor, who owned the priory estate, and Fr Ignatius, the controversial cleric and mystic who tried to build a vast abbey at Capel y ffin.Mr Fairclough, who is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a former Keeper of Art at the National Museum, is the author of The Llanthony Valley: A Borderland.His talk on Friday in the hall of the Baptist church at 7pm will also be streamed on Zoom. For the link, please email [email protected]. Membership of the society is £10, guests are charged £5.