Welsh Journals

will one be able to see how well Cwmbran fared in the New Town stakes; and whether it was a prisoner of a series of regional policies generated by successive governments. A.V.B. ANNA TUCKER, Shire County Guide 15: Gwent Shire Publications (1987) 64 pp, map, many photographs. It is perhaps surprising that the visitor to (or native of) Gwent has of recent years been without the benefit of a reliable, convenient and inexpensive guidebook to the county. C. J. O. Evans Monmouthshire: Its History & Topography, now forty years old and somewhat dated in consequence, is still the most comprehensive guidebook, but too valuable to be kept in the glove-box of a car; and subsequent productions by local authorities and commercial publishers have tended to be unreliable in content and limited in coverage to the best-known locales. We are fortunate therefore that Shire Publications, with its enviable reputation for inexpensive, well-produced but authoritative publications, has chosen Gwent for the latest in its series of County Guides. Happily the author chosen for the work can write lucidly and with interest, which seems more than can be said of many contemporary guidebook-writers. What we have in consequence is a lively, enjoyable read, as much a bedtime book as a practical tool for touring the county. Divided into ten chapters, each focussing on a topic such as landscape, countryside, towns, and places of interest, equal coverage is given to the industrial west as to the rural east. There are excellent photographs throughout, happily not of the ubiquitous photo-library variety which characterise many modern guidebooks, but specially taken for this book (mostly by the author's husband). The map, though, is rather too small and lacks the detail to be really useful. Much of the text includes material not available in similar publications, and although some of the interpretations therein may not have achieved universal acceptance, and there are some minor errors of fact, these should not detract from an outstanding publication which will be of interest to all who take pleasure in going round and about in Gwent. A.V.B.