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Llanfihangel near Rogiet a shrunken village in south east Gwent B. R. Stopgate In the area around Magor and Caldicot in south east Gwent there are several small settlements which would perhaps best be described as hamlets rather than villages. Among these hamlets are Wilcrick and Llanfihangel near Rogiet, with Manor farm, Ifton, perhaps indicating the site of a deserted village. The modem villages of Rogiet and Sud- brook could be added, because they owe their present size entirely to the coming of the railway in the second half of the nineteenth century. Tithe maps show that these two were also very small circa 1840. A common feature of these hamlets is the presence of a church, usually small, one or two large farms, and perhaps a similar number of cottages.1 The hamlet is usually also the focal point of a parish of the same name, and the question they pose is, were they always so small, or was there once a larger settlement, large enough to be termed a village? In the case of Wilcrick and Sudbrook it seems that they probably were larger. Fieldwork at Wilcrick has revealed the sites of former houses,2 and a combination of field and documentary work at Sudbrook has located the probable site of the medieval village.3 To these two sites can now be added a third village, that of Llanfihangel near Rogiet. Documentary research has revealed the presence of a substantial village in the second half of the seventeenth century, which survived into the eighteenth century until being reduced to approximately its present size some time between 1711 and 1766. The site of the former village of Llanfihangel near Rogiet is today occupied by a church and some eight dwellings, two more than existed in 1766. These dwellings consist of two farm houses, each now with an additional dwelling attached, and two pairs of semi-detached cottages, originally built to house farm labourers at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1651, there were twenty-eight dwellings. Thanks to the survival of a series of manorial records, it is possible not only to chart the final years of the village at Llanfihangel, but to go some way towards reconstructing it. The records in question are surveys of the manors of Rogiet and Llanfihangel near Rogiet for the years 1651 and 171 1,4 and an undated manuscript book containing estate details of circa 1680.5 The survival of the records of the two manors was crucial, as the village of Llanfihangel was divided by the manorial boundary. Other documents such as the tithe maps, estate maps, and leases, have materially assisted in the recovery of village details.