The Plough & Harrow, Monknash

We walk past this old inn most days. It’s one of the oldest in South Wales and its low beams, log fires and benches date back centuries. It’s often used for TV productions and is famed as an old smugglers haunt being very near the rugged coast of jagged rocks and dangerous inlets that run along the Bristol Channel.

The story goes that the smugglers were often just locals who tied lamps to the sheep on nearby hills on stormy nights to lure ships towards what appeared to be the town lamps of safe harbour. Once on the rocks the ships were wrecked, looted and the dead seamen taken to the inn for hiding until they could be buried.