Old Wye Bridge Chepstow - Old books to read online (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, March 20, 2014, 16:41 (3902 days ago) @ I Hickman

You're welcome. Thats a nice photo, do I take it you live in or near Chepstow ( I ask as we get posts from all aorund the world). By coincidence only last week ago we were watching the video of a recent tv programme which featured that bridge, Griff Rhys Jones visited Chepstow and canoed the Wye, explaining about the massive tidal range and it's effect on the currents. I've lived away from the Dean since the 80s, I explained to my Middlesex born son how in my childhood it was such a long drive "just" to get onto the M5 enroute for our summer holidays, having to go thro Chepstow town & over the iron bridge, with all the mud below, what a great difference that bypass now makes ! Sadly that episode's not on Youtube, did you catch it ?
http://www.visitwales.com/latest-news/2014/01/griffs-great-welsh-adventure

I hadn't realised the current bridge wasn't the first iron bridge at Chepstow, must have been a devil of a job to build in those pre Victorian days given the tidal range. I see it was built by a Bridgenorth engineer, no doubt influenced by Darby's 1780 structure at Ironbridge, I'll have to look into that.
http://starvideo.co.uk/Wye/wye_Chepstow.html

Re your finding this FoD website, I've searched the web many times these last few years while researching my own family history plus that of inlaws & friends from across the UK; I think this is EASILY the BEST local FH website there is in the uk, we are so very fortunate to have it. Please be aware it has a huge amount of interesting documents(eg wills, inquests), massive Parish Records database, old photos and so on to be found here as well as this friendly and fully-searchable forum - anyone with even a small interest in the Dean should be able to find things of interest particularly if they're willing to browse thro' the many and various sections via the top banner.

Ref the book, don't know if you've tried it but this North American website has a great many old books that can be easily read online, a quick search has shown 50+ about Monmouthshire including some Trade Directories, hopefully this link will work for you.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=monmouthshire%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts