This passage forms part of historian Fred Hando’s journey through Gwent

STARTING at Bassaleg follow Forge Lange down to the M4 (junction 28)and turn left along the A48.

At the next roundabout turn right to follow the B4239 past Duffryn School and housing estate and turn right for Tredegar House Country Park.

My Welsh friend and mentor said that 'Morgan' is one of our most evocative names.

'Morgan' - and he lingered over the vowels means 'song of the sea'. It is almost within earshot of the song of the sea that the ancestral house of the Morgans stands (Tredegar House).

The park stretches thence to Bassaleg, individual by a road, for the Newport-Cardiff road ran through Bassaleg.

It was sheltered on the north-east by the Gaer hill and bordered by the waters of the Ebbw, dashing seawards 'with pebbles in his throat'.

It is a land which was never bought or sold, remaining in the same hands through recorded history.

Imaginative bards traced the origins of the Morgans tot he third of Noah.

I shall be satisfied with Cadifor-fawr, and eleventh-century chieftain of Dyfed, eighth in descent from whom was Llewelyn ap Ifor, lord of St. Clear.

Llewelyn married the most beautiful lady in the land, Angharad, daughter of Sir Morgan ap Meredith of Tredegar - the 'lady whose skin was of the hue of drifted snow' - and her son was Ifor Hael the patron of Dafydd ap Gwilym.

In the poems of the great bard we learn that Ifor was not only a warrior, but he loved the chase, he loved his people, he loved poetry.

How like his descendant, who endeared himself in his many-sided personality to us all.

In 1448, Sir John of Tredegar was knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

His son, Sir Morgan of Tredegar, was knighted on Blackheath field by Henry VII, himself a Welshman.

It is this Sir Morgan was who engages our immediate interest, for it must have been he who began, and perhaps completed (for he lived until 1504), the Old Hall, which is shown in my drawing.

This was the hall of the faire house of stone, noted by Leland, and has come down to use little changed.

The beautiful early Tudor windows of four and five lights, surmounted by double dripstones, fill the white room with light, while th fireplaes - one of the same period as the windows, the other Elizabethan - suggests that the Morgans demanded warmth as well as light.

The temperature was in the lower twenties as I walked along the drive towards Tredegar House.

Snow lay on the lawns, and the branches of the splendid trees, and the swans seemed 'dithered', as we say by the ice on the lake - that lake where his Lordship used to catch trout for his guests.

During recent years the house and grounds have been taken over by St. Joseph's Convent. School was in session, but the Reverend Mother with great kindness, found a viewpoint from which I could sketch the Old Hall (now the refectory), and then faced the Artic conditions without in order to show me the memorial to 'Sir Briggs'.

There she left me within a circle of yew trees to sketch the monument.

In my drawing, the obelisk is merely suggested, and the details of costume, saddle etc., are as I saw them on the monument.

(I cannot agree that I should display in my illustrations an exact knowledge of uniform and equipment when I am representing memorials which have been worn by time or damaged.)

While it is poignant to compare the horse and rider in the splendid painting still to be seen at Tredegar House with the stone monument portrayal, my cold heart was warmed as I read the noble tribute from a man to his horse.

There is a most touching sequel. A beautiful canvas in the house shows 'our' Lord Tredegar nursing a Skye terrier.

That little dog was buried near Sir Briggs and I found his memorial surmounted by a broken column.

With difficulty I deciphered the inscription:

'In loving memory of Peeps

fondest and most affectionate

of Skye terriers, who died

Sept 6, 1898

His honest heart was all his master's own

There are some both good and wise who say

Dumb creatures we have cherished

here below

Shall give us joyous greetings when we reach the golden gate

Is it folly that I hoped it may be so?"

The Reverend Mother then arranged for me to see every room in the house.

Guessing correctly that I should have lost my way in such a three storey-labyrinth, she had requested Sister Mary to act as a guide, and Sister Mary undertook her job with the gay spirit of an Irish colleen.

We were accompanied by my son Robert, and a handsome Scottish Border collie named Prince, who was more interested in mice than in Morgan.s

The north-eastern porch, with its spiral stone pillars and balcony surmounted by the stone lion, Gryphon and reindeer, opened into the entrance hall, panelled in oak from floor to frieze.

Over the fireplace we saw at once Charlton's painting, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' with Captain the Hon. Godfrey Morgan - 'our' Lord Tredegar - as its central figure, borne boldly and well into battle by 'Sir Briggs'.

We moved now into a most impressive proportions.

Above and below the great wall-panels and round emperors and goddesses looked down on us.

This was the room, which saw in 1800 much history.

On the walls of the music room are the portraits of the first viscount, nursing 'Peeps', a characteristic painting of Evan Morgan by Ambrose McEvoy, and canvasses showing Sir Charles Morgan, his eldest son and his beautiful wife, Mary Margaret, whose monument at Bassaleg portrays her with her seven weeping children.

This is an extract from Hando’s Gwent, Volume One, edited by Chris Barber and reproduced with Mr Barber's permission.