Caerwent — Venta Silurum — is a small village on the limestone plain of south Monmouthshire that contains the most complete Roman town walls surviving in Britain. The medieval church and the walled Roman precinct sit within a quiet agricultural landscape of old enclosure hedges and cattle pasture between the M4 corridor and the Wye estuary. Hawthorn and blackthorn are dense in the high roadside hedges; the limestone grassland within and around the Roman walls carries wild thyme, marjoram and birdsfoot trefoil in summer — a distinctive and rich forage supplement. Bramble and ivy close the year. The Gwent Beekeepers' Association covers the village.
Collectors here handle swarms on the limestone grassland and ivy-covered Roman wall faces within the old town precinct, in the sheltered gardens and hedged cottage grounds of the village lanes, in the high hawthorn of the old enclosure hedgerows on the farms between the village and the Wentwood forest, and in chimney stacks of the older stone and render properties near the church.
Nearest BBKA-affiliated associations to help with swarm collection and local advice.
BS32 4PG· approx. 14 km
Visit websiteGL15 6BS· approx. 19 km
Visit websiteNP7 9DY· approx. 20 km
Visit websiteAssociation data sourced from the British Beekeepers Association directory via SwarmBase.
Blackthorn and hawthorn on red-soil hedges open the year, followed by sycamore and horse chestnut. The Wye Valley woods — Wyndcliff, Tintern, Wentwood — give a lime and sweet-chestnut June crop. Bramble is dense; the Black Mountains edge contributes bilberry and late ling heather. Apple orchards around the Monnow give a minor but useful pollination flow. A strong late ivy flow on red-sandstone stone walls and church towers closes the year.
More on beekeeping in MonmouthshireReport it in under a minute and a trained local beekeeper will arrange safe collection.
