"Hard and hye" the mountains do rise and tower above the luxurious valley of "pastor grounds." Not so long ago all the streets of Abergavenny were narrow and crooked, but of late years there has been a great display of public enterprise. Whether the changes that have been effected are to be regarded as improvements is questionable; for with the widening of the thoroughfares and the building of a new town hall and markets, and so forth, the individuality of a town is apt to disappear; but the residents may be pardoned for thinking themselves to be much better off than were their forefathers. To be sure, the town has scanty remains of a castle rising from a tree-clad hill to overlook the houses and the river. Part of the castle area is covered with houses, and another part has been converted into public gardens. The associations of the fortress are none of the noblest, for historians tell us that "it was dishonoured by treason oftener than any other castle in Wales." It seems to have been the practice of the Norman lords of Abergavenny Castle to invite neighbouring Welsh chiefs to feasts within the walls of the stronghold, and then treacherously murder them. Wood tells of one of the most dastardly of these deeds. "Soon after the murder of Trahaern Vechan, at Slansavaddon lake, by William de Braose (lord of Abergavenny Castle), the Welsh, inflamed with resentment and revenge, commanded by Sitsylt ap Dyfnwald and other Welsh chieftains, surprised the Castle of Abergavenny, and took the whole garrison prisoners. William de Braose recovered his castle by composition; and after the reconciliation of the Welsh lords to King Henry, /A.D./ 1175, he invited Sitsylt, his son Geofrey, and other men of note to a feast, under pretence of congratulation upon the late peace; when, contriving cause for dispute, he called upon his men, who were ready for that purpose, and most treacherously murdered the unsuspicious and unarmed Welsh; then proceeded to Sitsylt's house, slew his son Cadwallader in his mother's presence, and, setting fire to the house, carried her away to his castle." Once upon a time Abergavenny was noted for flannels, but this industry has been wrested from it by more enterprising competitors, while the manufacture of wigs, for which it was once noted, has succumbed to change of fashion. St. Mary's Church, a fine fourteenth-century church, occupying the site of a Norman church which was attached to a Benedictine priory, contains many ancient monuments, amongst others that of Sir Richard Herbert of Coldbrook, who, together with his brother, was beheaded, after the Battle of Banbury, in 1469; and in the Herbert chapel is "a Jesse tree," of which Murray's "Handbook" says that it is "perhaps one of the most perfect extant."