Llanvapley

Llanvapley (Welsh: Llanfable) is a village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, United Kingdom. Llan has replaced the (earlier) Eglwys (1254).

Location

Llanvapley is located at grid reference SO364141. It is on the B4233 road, four miles from Abergavenny and ten miles from Monmouth.

Amenities

Llanvapley has a cricket team, comprising a number of players from the village. The cricket pavilion cum village hall is run by the Llanvapley Sports & Social Association who manage the day to day running of the building for the benefit of the community and the cricket club [1].

St Mabley's church is now holding services now that the problems with the roof and structural damage have been solved. Services resumed in April 2006 and attendances at the once a month service have been good. A new vicar was appointed in December 2006, Rev. David Osborn has joined the parish after working in Bracknell for a number of years. He and his wife, Helen, have moved into the vicarage at Llantilio Crossenny which has been recently refurbished.

The Red Hart Inn is in the centre of the village opposite the church but it is not open for business at the moment. The current owners closed the pub in 2002 and applied for change of use to a private house [2]. This was turned down by Monmouthshire County Council. The owners appealed to the Welsh Assembly and the appeal was turned down in 2004. The pub was boarded up for a short period after this. Prospects of the pub reopening have not changed since 2004 but the current economic conditions have improved as shown by the success of other local pubs such as the Hogs Head. The owners of the pub applied for a certificate of legal development in 2011 but were once again unsuccessful.

The closure of the Red Hart occurred around the time of the closure of two other local pubs, The Hostry and The Halfway House. The Halfway House reopened in summer 2007 and is now known as Warwicks.

Llanvapley still has a post box and a red telephone box. The Museum of Rural Life used to be in Llanvapley until the 1980s when it moved to Usk. It was housed in a building which originally formed part of the village for the workers who built the Grwyne Fawr dam the Black Mountains, Wales. Llanvapley Court is the biggest house in the village and was in the past a country hotel.

External links

• Monumental Inscriptions for Llanvapley
• Catholic Recusants 1719
• [3] - wildlife of Llanvapley.