LOCAL HISTORY GROUP - The speaker at the recent meeting of the Bill MacAdam History Group was Rachael Rogers from the Abergavenny Museum. Her talk was on old Abergavenny and the castle. She took the group from the time the hunter-gatherers were living in the Black Mountains, through the Iron Age and the Hill Forts and the Romans and the Normans right up to the present day. The group heard that in the early 1960s Father Radcliffe and Gwyn Jones started the Abergavenny Archaeological Society. Flints were found in Flannel Street and Weapons from 2,500BC at Llantilio Pertholey. The Romans called Abergavenny Gobannium the place of ironsmith. They learned that the original parish church was St John's up until the Reformation, when St Mary's, originally a Benedictine Priory, became the parish church and St John's became the Henry VIII Grammar School. The castle was built by Hamelin de Dallon in 1090. Rachael told of the massacre of the Cecil family and other Welsh nobles one Christmas Day. William do Braose, in 1175 Lord of Abergavenny, had invited the Cecils to Christmas Dinner. As guests at the castle they left their weapons at the door. De Braose then had them all killed. Seven years later the Welsh nobles tried to get their revenge. Although they captured many Normans they did not get William de Braose who was away at the time. And so Rachael brought the group, via an 1880s vegetarian dinner costing 3d per head, up to the present day. Information Boards are now being put in the castle grounds for the benefit of visitors. Re-enactment groups visit the castle, one is coming in May this year. A rare plants fair is to be held there at the end of August and the Abergavenny Food Fair has been held in the castle grounds. It was a most interesting and informative evening. At the next meeting of the History Group on Friday, February 27, the speaker will be Nigel Lewis talking about Railways around Monmouth and Abergavenny. The group meets at Hilston Park at 7.30pm and everyone is welcome.