The town was established around a Norman stone castle on a crag on the western edge of the Vale of Montgomery. The castle had been built in the early 13th century to control an important ford over the nearby River Severn and replaced an earlier motte and bailey fortification at Hen Domen, one mile away. An important supporter of King William I (the Conqueror), Roger de Montgomery, originally from Montgomery in the Pays d'Auge in Normandy, was given this part of the Welsh Marches by William and his name was given to the town surrounding the castle.[3]
Hand-drawn map of Montgomery and Merioneth by Christopher Saxton from 1578
The Treaty of Montgomery was signed 29 September 1267 in Montgomeryshire. By this treaty King Henry III of England acknowledged Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as Prince of Wales. Montgomery was sacked at the beginning of the 15th century by the Welsh Prince Owain Glyndŵr. At that time, the castle and surrounding estates were held by the Mortimer family (the hereditary Earls of March) but they came into royal hands when the last Earl of March died in 1425. In 1485, King Richard III was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth and the Royal Estates, including Montgomery and its castle, passed into the hands of the new King, Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and a Welshman. The castle was then given to another powerful Welsh family, the Herberts. One of their descendants, religious poet George Herbert was born in Montgomery in 1593.
As a county town, Montgomery prospered, and its buildings give the small town its current character.
In 1923 the Montgomeryshire County War Memorial was completed to commemorate fallen servicemen from Montgomeryshire. The memorial is on a hill about 1 km SW of the town.[6]
Governance
Montgomery Town Council represents the community at the local level, with eight town councillors.[7]
Until 2022 Montgomery was also an electoral ward for Powys County Council, electing one county councillor for the ward. Sitting councillor, Stephen Hayes, successfully defended his seat at the May 2017 elections.[8]
As a result of the Review of Electoral Arrangements - County of Powys proposals, Montgomery ward was combined with neighbouring Forden, to create a Forden
and Montgomery ward with a population of over 2,000. This came into effect at the 2022 elections.[9]Green Party candidate, Jeremy Thorpe, won the seat at the 2022 Powys Council election.[10]
St Nicholas Parish Church
View of St Nicholas's Church from the nearby Montgomery Castle
This O,
enclosed around,
smoothe, with no entrance found,
yet soone with newest life to overflow
So has thy tombe, by Pilate sealed,
to us that third day Life revealed,
O grant that I, some morning bright,
my earthly Shell, then broke,
may wear, in White,
Thy Yoke.
In 1821 John Davies of Wrexham was sentenced to death by hanging at Montgomery for highway robbery. Throughout his trial, and after the sentence, Davies declared his innocence and prayed that God would not allow the grass to grow on his grave for a hundred years as a sign of his innocence. His grave remained bare for at least a century, giving birth to the legend of the Robber's grave. The grave (now grassed) can still be seen in the churchyard.[13] Besides the legendary Robber's Grave, the churchyard also contains the war graves of two soldiers of World War I and a soldier and two airmen of World War II.[14]
The last remaining Georgian town hall in Montgomeryshire, Montgomery Town Hall forms a striking termination to Broad Street, although the centre of the building is offset from the line of the street. Built by William Baker of Audlem, 1748–51, for Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, for whom Baker had also in 1745 provided designs for a new Town Hall at Bishop's Castle. In 1828 Thomas Penson, at the expense of Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis, raised the roof level over the first floor. The clock tower was added in 1921. The predecessor of this building was probably a half-timbered structure, which the Speed map of 1610 shows was sited, lengthways, in the middle of Broad Street.[15]
The Old County Gaol
Gatehouse, Old Gaol, Montgomery
The former Montgomeryshire County Gaol that once stood at the end of Gaol Road was designed by Thomas Penson, the county surveyor, and built of brick faced with stone, c 1830–32. The tall octagonal governor's house, with the chapel above, was at the centre of four radiating two- and three-storey wings. One of the yards was fitted with a treadmill. The gatehouse was built into the wall to face a new approach in 1866 by J.W. Poundley; powerful ashlar triumphal arch with four giant semi-rusticated pilasters.
The gaol was closed in 1878 and all that now remains, apart from the gatehouse, is the Governor's House and the high wall of one cell block.[16]
Montgomery Primary School
Formerly the National School of 1864. The school was built by the architect Thomas Nicholson on land donated by Lord Powis and financed by the then Rector and the Hereford Diocesan Board of Education as well as many smaller gifts. Stone, many-gabled gothic with splay-footed buttresses, well designed and detailed. Master's house to left and gabled school building to right, and a wing beyond. The assembly hall was added in 1952 by Herbert Carr, the Montgomeryshire county architect.
The town was used for many of the filming locations in Dylan Thomas's 'A Child's Christmas In Wales' TV adaptation 1987. Notable locations are Broad Street, Church Bank and School Bank.
Geraint Goodwin (1903-1941), author, settled in Montgomery where he died.[18]
Julie Christie, actress, lived for a long time on the outskirts of the town. She is reported as saying in 2007 that the closest thing she had to home lay in the remembered magic of the few summers she had shared with her mother in Wales when she first returned from India. So she bought a basic farm near Montgomery, invited some friends to stay with her, which is how she has lived most of her life since.[19]
^Scourfield R and Haslam R, (2013) Buildings of Wales: Powys; Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire, 2nd edition, Yale University Press, p. 210-11
^Haslam R '"Powys:The Buildings of Wales'", (Nikolaus Pevsner advisory editor), 1978, p. 167
Smith J., (1968) Herbert Correspondence, Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales Press.
Scourfield R and Haslam R, (2013) Buildings of Wales: Powys; Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Breconshire, 2nd edition, Yale University Press, p. 133-134.
Ann and John Welton (2003), The Story of Montgomery Logaston Press, 2nd revised edition 2010
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