Showing 58013 results

The Court of Great Sessions was established by the so called Second Act of Union in 1542 and remained in existence until 1830. This Act brought Wales fully under English law. According to the Act the court was directed to hear all pleas 'in as large and ample a manner as the courts of the Kings Bench and Common Pleas'. It also appears that the court acquired an equity jurisdiction from the outset. The court was to sit twice a year and each session was to last for six days. For legal purposes the Act divided Wales into four circuits, with three counties to each circuit, namely: Chester (counties of Denbigh, Flint and Montgomery); North Wales (counties of Anglesey, Caernarfon and Merioneth); Brecon (counties of Brecon, Glamorgan and Radnor); and Carmarthen (counties of Cardigan, Carmarthen and Pembroke). There was no room for Monmouthshire in this new scheme and it was therefore assigned to the Oxford assize circuit. The records of this circuit are in The National Archives. In 1830 the Court of Great Sessions was replaced by the Chester and North Wales circuit and the South Wales circuit.

The Morgan family of Tredegar held several estates spread over several counties. The Tredegar and Ruperra estates each held land in Monmouthshire and eastern Glamorgan. The Dderw (obsolescent anglicisation, Therrow) and Palleg estates lay in the borough of Brecon and in Breconshire. The Friars (originally the Black Friars) estate in Newport was held by a branch of the Morgan family of Langstone in the 16th and 17th centuries before coming into the hands of the Morgan family of Tredegar. There were also estates in Herefordshire, Kent and Middlesex. In about 1806 these estates were reorganised into county estates, creating separate estate administrations in Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Breconshire and Herefordshire.

As part of the reorganisation, the Tredegar Wharf Company (TWC) was formed in 1807 to develop the Newport docks. The company held a 99-year lease of the Tredegar estate's interests in a number of streets and wharves in Newport, and some adjacent land. In 1895 the company was renamed the Tredegar Wharf estate (TWE), and in 1903 a Newport rack rents department was formed within the TWE.

The Newport ground rents were divided from the rest of the Monmouthshire estate in 1888, to form a separate department. With the expiration of the TWC lease in 1906 the Newport ground rents, Newport rack rents and the TWE were merged to form the Newport rents estate. This estate became a subsiduary of the Monmouthshire town estate in 1919, where it remained until at least 1953, and probably until the final breakup of the Tredegar estate.

The Monmouthshire estate was divided in 1919, with the Monmouthshire town estate being separated from the Monmouthshire agricultural estate. The Monmouthshire agricultural estate is very much the continuation of the Monmouthshire estate, and included the Monmouthshire mineral interests. The Monmouthshire agricultural estate was effectively wound up at the end of 1958, when its balances were carried forward to the Monmouthshire town estate.

The Monmouthshire town estate comprised urban properties separated out from the Monmouthshire estate, plus the town rents of New Tredegar and the Newport rents estate.

The title Glamorgan estate first appears in 1847, relating to what was previously known as the Ruperra estate, and later as the Ruperra estate in Glamorgan. The development of Cardiff and other towns during the 19 cent. resulted in the separation of the Cardiff ground rents (mainly the Tredegarville area between Splott and Roath) and a Glamorgan town estate from the main Glamorgan estate.

An 1820 survey of the Breconshire and Herefordshire estates of Sir Charles Morgan divides the estates into the Tredegar estate (4555a.), Dderw estate (1572a.), Palleg estate (2164a.) and Herefordshire estate (487a.).

According to the 1873 return of owners of land in England and Wales, Lord Tredegar owned an estimated 38,750 acres of land in Wales (all in Monmouthshire, Breconshire and Glamorgan), with an estimated rental of £124,598. The same survey also returned Tredegar as owning several estates in England, although not enough to be a 'great landowner' in England (defined by contemporary critics as owning over 3,000 acres with a rental of over £3,000).