Welsh Journals

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the Great Napoleon seems at first sight strange. But it is nevertheless true. During those troublous times when Napoleon was trying to bring all Europe under his sway, and was threatening to cross the silver streak which divides us from the continent, the now defunct Montgomeryshire Militia was almost continually embodied in readiness to respond to the call to defend our shores. As a consequence an Order was issued in 1792 for the constant residence of one- third of the non-commissioned officers of the regiment at the head quarters at Welshpool It was to provide accommodation for the staff that the then Earl of Powis-who was the commanding officer of the regiment-built Sergeants' Row. After Napoleon's ambitions were finally crushed on the field of Waterloo, and the need of the more or less constant embodiment of the militia passed away, it is stated that some of the cottages of Sergeants' Row were converted into havens of refuge for some of the war worn veterans of the Napoleonic campaigns. An old age pensioner, age 88, who lived in the Row in 1914, recalls that one of her neighbours for a number of years used to be one of such veterans, and had fought at Waterloo. No records of the old Poorhouse exist-they are lost in oblivion. When it was built, how many paupers it housed, and how Bumble used to reign over them is not known. All we know is that the paupers of Welshpool ceased to be domiciled there in 1795, when Forden Workhouse was erected, and the responsibility of local parishes to look after their own paupers individually was merged into a divided responsibility, shared by all the parishes that were then joined together to form the Forden Union. Upon that occasion the Poorhouse was converted into three cottages, but its day and generation is past, for the three cottages are now tenantless and dilapidated. The hoary old building is, with one exception, the last remaining straw thatched building in the town.