Abergavenny, Monmouthshire : Place names

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Abergavenny. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name	Author	Source
ABERGAVENNY	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
	John Marius Wilson	Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
ABERGENNY	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ABERGEVENNI	Gerald of Wales	The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales (Oxford, Mississippi, 1997).
ABER GEVENNY	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ABERGEVENNY	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
ABERGEVENNY	Gerald of Wales	The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales (Oxford, Mississippi, 1997).
GOBANNIUM	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
GORBANIUM	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

Names for administrative units:

These names were used for units associated with Abergavenny. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

Name	Unit Type	Source
ABERGAVENNY	Ancient District (Hundred)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
	Ancient District (Ldsp)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
	Constituency (PDivCon)	Great Britain Historical GIS Project
	Local Government District (RD)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
	Local Government District (MB)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
	Parish-level Unit (CP/AP)	1851 Census of Great Britain, Table [1], 'Population Abstract'.
	Poor Law Union/Reg. District (PLU/RegD)	Statement of the Names of the Several Unions and Poor Law Parishes of England and Wales; and of the Population, Area, and Rateable Value thereof in 1881 (1)
	Poor Law Union/Reg. District (RegD)	1851 Census of Great Britain, Table [1], 'Population Abstract'.
	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
	Sanitary District (USD)	1891 Census of England and Wales, Table 4, 'Area and Population in Rural Sanitary Districts'.
	Sanitary District (RSD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Northern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991), p. 671.
	Urban Labour Market	Great Britain Historical GIS Project
ABERGAVENNY RURAL	Parish-level Unit (CP/AP)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
ABERGAVENNY URBAN	Local Government District (MB)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
ABERGAVENNY URBAN	Parish-level Unit (CP/AP)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.
MONMOUTHSHIRE NORTHERN	Constituency (PDivCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
NORTHERN MONMOUTHSHIRE	Constituency (PDivCon)	Richard H.A. Cheffins, Parliamentary Constituencies and their registers since 1832 (London: The British Library, 1998)
W45000952	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
W561429	Local Government District (MB)
W561448	Local Government District (RD)
Y FENNI	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
Y FENNI	Local Government District (MB)	M. Richards, Welsh Administrative and Territorial Units (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1969), p. 3.

NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Abergavenny, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.

Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Abergavenny, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.