Historic Landscape Characterisation
The Gwent Levels

05 Redwick village

05 Redwick village character area: the best-preserved nucleated settlement on the Level.
(Photo: GGAT Gwent Levels 013)

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There is a fine collection of documentary sources, including several detailed late medieval and post-medieval surveys. A plaque on the wall of the church commemorates the great flood of 1606 when many thousands of people and animals died: other examples can be seen at Goldcliff and Peterstone churches.

A range of Commissioners of Sewers notices relating to the drainage system are on display built into the bus shelter near the church, along with some stones that were placed along reens to demarcate the stretches which individual tenants were responsible for maintaining.

Key historic landscape characteristics

Nucleated village centred on cross-roads and medieval church, traditional buildings (post-medieval) including working farms, earthworks, traditional orchards, road-side commons, drainage features (reens, maintenance markers)

The village lies at an important cross-roads in the central southern part of the parish, on the higher coastal part of the Caldicot Level, surrounded by area 6.

Redwick is the largest nucleated village on the Levels, focused around a nodal point in the road network. Several small areas of roadside common survive, one with a plaque commemorating the enclosure act of 1850.

There are a wide variety of buildings including the medieval church, and some fine post-medieval cottages and farmhouses. There are several working farms. Earthworks to the south of the village relate to abandoned buildings and are of great archaeological potential.

Several very fine orchards survive, and a cider press is preserved in a bus shelter beside the church.

Redwick is the best-preserved medieval nucleated village on the Levels, and remains generally in very good condition with few modern buildings. There are a diverse range of pleasant buildings and other landscape features including orchards, giving it a very high coherence and group value. With several working farms it retains a high degree of integrity as a working agricultural village.