Place:Kemeys Commander, Monmouthshire, Wales

Watchers
NameKemeys Commander
Alt namesCemais Comawndwrsource: Family History Library Catalog
Kemeys Comawndwrsource: partly Welsh
TypeChapelry, Parish (ancient), Civil parish
Coordinates51.738°N 2.943°W
Located inMonmouthshire, Wales     ( - 1974)
Also located inGwent, Wales     (1974 - 1996)
Monmouthshire (principal area), Wales     (1996 - )
See alsoUsk Hundred, Monmouthshire, Waleshundred in which it was located
source: Family History Library Catalog
the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Kemeys Commander (Welsh: Cemais Comawndwr) is a village in Monmouthshire, Wales. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Usk, and comprises a few farms and cottages slightly off the main road leading to Abergavenny within a graceful bend of the River Usk. The village has the parish church of All Saints.

Origin of the name

Its unusual name is derived from the fact that the patronage of the church was at one time held by the Knights Templar and was a commandery or preceptory, as their houses were termed. In the 17th century their successors, the Knights Hospitaller, drew £2 13s. 4d. per annum from demesne lands in this parish. There may have been a hermitage here in early days. It is, however, doubtful whether the Kemeys family ever held it and they probably took their name from another Kemeys, Kemeys Inferior, nine miles (14 km) further down the River Usk. Both of these names are from the Welsh word cemais meaning 'bend in a river', and this is an apt description of the site of this village, which stands at the centre of a long bend of consistent radius.

Despite the fact that the family did not actually take their surname from here, it was "farmed" by Edward Kemeys, perhaps as chaplain of the chantry of St. Nicholas in the parish church of Usk; in 1603 it belonged to an Edward Morgan. In 1799 Archdeacon William Coxe came here during his Historical Tour in Monmouthshire (published 1801) and wrote "We here mounted our horses and rode through thickets across the fields to Kemeys Commander, a small village".

Chain Bridge, to the north of the village, takes the B4598 road from Usk to Abergavenny over the River Usk. A bridge was here as early as the 16th century, but was washed away in winter floods in 1690 and was eventually replaced, in 1730, by a solid oak structure known as Pont Kemeys. This bridge in turn was replaced, in 1829, by one built by Brown Lenox of Pontypridd – supported by sturdy chains, hence the name. The current bridge, which was built between 1905 and 1906 by George Palmer of Neath, is an iron arch with green-painted girders which is still referred to as Chain Bridge.


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