About

Caldicot is a town in Monmouthshire on the north side of the Severn estuary with a population of some 11,000; it is located south-west of Chepstow and east of Newport, just off the M4 and M48 motorways. In the mid C19th, Caldicot was a small farming village but the opening of the South Wales railway attracted industry and in 1879 work began on constructing the Severn Tunnel which brought in hundreds of workers to Caldicot.

Caldicot continued to grow steadily and by 1951 had a population of 1,770. It was decided that the village should be allowed to expand and, coupled with the building of a new steelworks nearby at Llanwern, Caldicot’s population had risen to 7,000 by the end of the 1960s; the growth of the town was furthered by the opening of the Severn Bridge in 1966.

Caldicot Castle is an extensive stone medieval castle built near the site of a former Saxon castle by the Norman earls of Hereford from about 1100; it was in the possession of a son of King Edward III until his death in 1391, when it reverted to the crown. Eventually the castle fell into ruin but it was sold to the Cobb family in 1885 who began the restoration of the castle as their home and this work continued into the C20th. Chepstow Council bought the castle in 1964 and today its impressive structure, surrounded by an idyllic 55 acre country park, is open to the public.