THE colourful history of public houses in Monmouthshire proved a surprise topic for one of the hit books of last year in a local store.

Heather Hurley's The Pubs of Monmouth, Chepstow and the Wye Valley outsold even the latest Harry Potter in one bookshop in the county in 2007.

The book has sold around 500 copies in total, including 200 in Chepstow Book Shop.

The local historian, who has lived in the Wye Valley for 35 years, spent three years researching and photographing hundreds of inns, past and present.

The end result is a fascinating history of some of the area's great social institutions, whose different uses reflected the changing values of the day.

Monmouth pubs were alive with political debate in the mid-19th century, for example, which allowed the seeds of the growing Chartism movement to be sown.

The book also shows how Chepstow's taverns reflected the town's history as a busy port, with names such as the Ship, the Boat and the Steam Packet.

But there were less salubrious uses, with some inns hosting cock-fights and bare-knuckle boxing matches.

"The first drink-drivers were found in Monmouth pubs," added Mrs Hurley, a married mother-of-three.

"Drivers of horse-drawn wagons were often charged with dangerous driving or driving whilst intoxicated."

Meanwhile the Monmouthshire Merlin in the 1850s even described a long-extinct inn, the White Horse in Over Monnow, as a "house of pollution, drunkenness and all but murder".

Matthew Taylor is the owner of Chepstow Bookshop, where Mrs Hurley's book has been flying off the shelves.

"At one stage every other person who came through the door was buying a copy and we were calling the publisher daily to increase our orders," he said.

"The demand for books on the history of the local area is huge."

  • The Pubs of Monmouth, Chepstow and the Wye Valley is published by Logaston Press, priced £12.95.
Did you know?
  • The Traveller's Rest, a 19th century pub in Wyesham, Monmouth, attracted notoriety in 1842 when a customer, was arrested for rowdy behaviour, although magistrates found the policeman himself to be "only not sober"!
  • The Queen's Head, still serving pints after 500 years as a public house in Wyebridge Street, Monmouth, was the scene of an attempted assassination on Oliver Cromwell, who used it as a hide-out during the Civil War.
  • Past landlords include Richard Cumper, of the Lord Nelson in The Back, Chepstow (now a private house), who stood trial for beating his wife in 1901.