Llanddinol a Hywig
About seventy houses, a church, a hall, two very old houses, and a great many beech trees, between Chepstow and the high ground at Devauden.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Ruth Sharville, CC BY-SA 2.0
The map
Press a number to read about a place. Most of the old houses are private homes, and are best admired from the road.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0
Built for the Curre family of Itton Court to a design by Guy Dawber, and listed Grade II for its Arts and Crafts character. Today it belongs to a charity and is run for the people of the parish.
Read the building
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Ruth Sharville, CC BY-SA 2.0
The parish says worship here goes back to the 6th century; a papal bull of 1133 mentions the church. It was mostly rebuilt in 1869 under Henry Woodyer. The one bell, cast at the Chepstow foundry, is dated 1702, the little organ was built in the Low Countries around 1700, and in 1894 the Curres put in electric light, probably the first in a Monmouthshire church.
St Deiniol's on the Severn Wye site
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0
It began as an outstation of Chepstow Castle, and its entrance tower is probably 14th century. The Curres bought it in 1749 and lived here until the last Lady Curre died in 1956. Guy Dawber added a long gallery and billiard room, which is how an Arts and Crafts architect came to know the village. It is listed Grade II*, with registered gardens.
Now private homes. Please enjoy it from the road.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0
Howick's great house is a farmhouse. Sir Cyril Fox and Lord Raglan dated it to about 1540 to 1550, and it is unusual for Monmouthshire in being built entirely of stone. It keeps fine Tudor windows, and the barns and stable block are listed too.
A private home and working farm.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0
West of the hall the B4293 meets the road from Mynydd-bach at Itton Common. You will find a red telephone box, a postbox and a village notice board in a row beside the road, and a very fine oak.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Ruth Sharville, CC BY-SA 2.0
The wood on the Chepstow side of Howick. Its beeches are lovely in spring leaf and glorious in autumn, and down among them are the arches of disused lime kilns, now deep in ivy.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Ruth Sharville, CC BY-SA 2.0
The stone piers and iron gates on Itton Road mark the long tree-lined drive to Rossfield. The fields around it fill with buttercups in early summer.
The drive is private.
Illustration adapted from a photograph by Helen Steed, CC BY-SA 2.0
South of the church, towards Mynydd-bach, a stream runs over a weir in Coppice Mawr, with a little wooden footbridge beside it. It is a quiet place on a warm day.
Through the year
The names
In Welsh, Itton is Llanddinol, from the dedication of its church to St Deiniol, a bishop of the 6th century. The English name turns up in the 13th century as Edyton, Hedyngton and Edeton, on its slow way to Itton.
Howick was a hamlet in Itton parish, with thirty-two people when a Victorian gazetteer counted them, and for a time a civil parish of its own. On the road sign today it is Hywig and Howick, one above the other. Devauden, up the hill, may take its name from the beech: Ty'r ffawydden, the house of the beech tree.
Neighbours
Itton's church is one of the twelve in the Severn Wye Ministry Area, which publishes its services.
Severn Wye Ministry AreaItton and Howick lie in the community of Devauden. Its council's members, minutes and notices are on the Devauden village website, which also covers Itton.
devauden.org.ukThe church's magazine for this group of parishes, ten times a year, by subscription or from Devauden village shop. The hall's events appear in it too.
About FivewaysBins, roads, planning and everything else the county looks after.
monmouthshire.gov.uk