St James Square, Monmouth

St James Square in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales is the site of a historic Indian Bean Tree. The Catalpa bignonioides, a native of the southeastern United States, was planted in the square in about 1900. It was joined by the Monmouth War Memorial in 1921. After more than one hundred years of presiding over the square, the tree became the focus of controversy when it was condemned by the Monmouthshire County Council in 2005. The decision was met with fierce community opposition. The parties involved resolved their differences in 2006, and the tree received treatment, albeit some of it unauthorized. By 2011, the Indian Bean Tree in St James Square was flourishing.

1 Monk Street, Monmouth was built as a Working Men's Free Institute. It is a Grade II Listed building in Monmouth, Wales and located next to Monmouth Baptist Church.The architect was Benjamin Lawrence of Newport who later designed the church next door. The institute's staircase was made by Macfarlane, Glasgow, Wrought Ironwork was by Cormell Cheltenham and the carvings were by J Willis. The building opened in 1868. A smoking room and lecture room were added in 1897.

Monmouth Baptist Church is located in Monk Street, Monmouth, south east Wales. The church building was opened in 1907, although the Baptist congregation had been formed in 1818. The church became a Grade II listed building on 27 October 1998.

33 Whitecross Street is a grade II listed building in Monmouth, Wales in the area of St James Square. The property was the site of an archaeological excavation in 2009, which found evidence of Neolithic (prehistoric), Roman, and Medieval activity. The following year, archaeological excavation in the square discovered the first evidence of Mesolithic human settlement in Monmouth.

St James House is a grade II listed building in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales. It is in the historic St James Square neighbourhood, within the Medieval town walls. While the house currently has an attractive, 18th-century facade, it originated as a burgage tenement. In addition, behind the house, evidence of a kiln has been unearthed, with both Medieval and Post-medieval pottery. In 2010, archaeological excavation in the square revealed the first evidence of Mesolithic human settlement in Monmouth. Recent residents of St James House have included boarding students from Monmouth School.

The Dispensary is a Georgian town house which is fairly typical of many town-centre houses in Monmouth, Wales, dating from the mid 18th century, but with early 19th-century additions. It stands in St James Square, opposite the Catalpa tree. The building was listed at Grade II on 27 June 1952.The architectural historian John Newman calls this the "one substantial eighteenth century house" in St James Street, though it is surrounded by later attractive façades. A dispensary was established here in 1857. This became the Monmouth Hospital and Dispensary, with nine beds, in 1868, and closed in 1903. The dispensary is one of 24 buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail, marked by a ceramic blue plaque on the wall.

The Monmouth town walls and defences comprise the defensive system of town walls and gates built in Monmouth, Wales between 1297 and the early part of the following century. Wye Bridge Gate, East Gate (Dixton Gate), Monk's Gate, and Monnow Bridge Gate were access points to the town. West Gate, across Monnow Street, also provided access. Only the Monnow Bridge Gatehouse survives intact, albeit in a substantially modified version from the original.

Monmouth Methodist Church is located in Monmouth, south east Wales. It is set well back from St James Street between buildings. Designed by George Vaughan Maddox and built in 1837, it retains its original galleries, organ loft and sophisticated pulpit.In common with many non-conformist places of worship in the town built when town authority lay very much with the established church, it was deliberately set back behind the houses to avoid making too prominent a challenge to the established order. This is one of 24 buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail and is Grade II* listed.

St James Street is a historic street in the town centre of Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales. It appears as a segment of Whitecross Street on the 1610 map of the town by cartographer John Speed and is within the medieval town walls. On more recent maps, it extends from St James Square southwest to Almshouse Street. In 2010, the street was the site of discovery of Mesolithic era artefacts. St James Street is lined with numerous listed buildings.

The Grange consists of three attached, grade II listed buildings in Monmouth, Wales. It is in the St James Street neighbourhood, within the medieval town walls. The Grange was originally built by Captain Charles Philipps at the site of a former farm house. The buildings later served as a preparatory school, one of the schools of the Haberdashers' Company, until 2009. In 2011, the buildings were converted into a boarding house for students of Monmouth School, another Haberdashers' Company school.

The Old Nag's Head, Old Dixton Road, Monmouth, Wales, is a nineteenth-century public house, with medieval origins, which incorporates a "stone drum tower of the town defences constructed between 1297 and c.1315." The tower is the only "upstanding remains of the town walls of Monmouth." The pub was designated a Grade II* listed building on 26 April 1955, its rating being due to "its interest as an early C19 public house which retains its character as well as a significant portion of a medieval gate-tower."

The Judges' Lodgings, located in Whitecross Street, Monmouth, south east Wales, is an eighteenth-century building, with earlier origins, on the edge of St James' Square. It has its origins as an early 16th-century town house, becoming the 'Labour in Vain' inn around 1756. It was in use as the Judges' Lodgings for the Monmouth Assizes before 1835, and as the Militia Officers' Mess in the 1870s. Today it is a private house, with modern mews cottages built into the rear. It is a Grade II listed building and is one of 24 blue plaque buildings on the Monmouth Heritage Trail.