The Village

Our village

Little Mill is a village of approximately 600 people situated close to the border of Monmouthshire and Torfaen.  Although the village has few facilities, it does have a large village hall, a church and a pub, all of which combine to give a sense of community identity.  The hall was built by voluntary labour in the 1930's, and is now administered by a committee to ensure that it is used as originally intended.Various groups use the hall on a weekly basis, but it is also available for hire for one off occasions.  If you wish to book the hall please click here.

About The Village Hall

In the height of the 1930's depression more and more men in Little Mill found it difficult to find employment. The village policeman, PC W J Taylor, saw the opportunity of engaging the time and talents of the unemployed and in 1933 launched a project to build a village hall. Funds were raised and over 30 unemployed men provided voluntary labour to build the hall.  Mr C Tedman Jones acted gratuitously as the architect and supervised the project throughout. The Village Hall opened in 1935. Special tribute was paid to the vision and commitment of PC Taylor. Colonel Ford, chairman of the Hall Committee, said "It is a compliment to the police force to find a man who is willing and able to devote his spare time to such a work as this. I think that it is the most credible building of its kind I have ever seen. It is exactly the sort of building you want in this place”.

£885 was raised to build the hall, the main sources being £190 from the Carnegie UK Trust, £380 loan from Monmouthshire Rural Community Council, and £20 from public subscriptions. The hall cost £861 to build, and it was estimated that the voluntary labour had saved over £250.

The hall has been refurbished and improved over its 79 year history but still reflects the original vision of PC Taylor and other community leaders. A multi-use sports area was added during the late 1990s.

The Village Hall is a registered charity and is run by a small group of local people.

About the village

The original village of Little Mill consisted of the Halfway House public house, a working corn mill, a tan yard, and a blacksmith/farriers shop.

Several of the houses on Berthon Road were built to house railway staff who worked on the Newport-Crewe mainline, and the the Coleford, Monmouth, Usk, and Pontypool Railway which opened from Little Mill Junction to Usk in June 1856. Little Mill Halt provided the village with access to railway travel. The line was closed to general passenger traffic 30th May 1955, although it continued to support a workers trains to serve Glascoed Royal Ordnance Factory until that ceased on 24th April 1961. The last goods train to use the route was in 1982 when trains ran to and from the Royal Ordinance factory during the Falklands Conflict.

The Village has grown since the end of the second world war, initially with more houses in Berthon Road, followed by Bryn Teg Place and the sheltered housing. Millbrook Court and Ty Gwyn were built in the early 1980's and Cae Melin added around the turn of the Millennium.

Ty Draw was the home of the Monmouthshire Reformatory, built there because Benjamin Hall did not want the Reformatory in Llanover. It opened for 35 boys in 1859, expanded to 40 boys in 1906, 55 in 1910 and 63 boys in 1916, but was closed in 1922. In recent years the old building have been converted to housing.

The village lost its shop and its post office in the 1980s, although there have been a number of recent attempts to re-establish a shop, but without success.

The village has a pub, an evangelical church, and a village hall which has several groups affiliated with it. The village has a railway line going through it, but the nearest stations being Pontypool & New Inn, Cwmbran and Abergavenny. The village is in the catchment area for several schools including Usk primary and Goytre Fawr primary school as well as several comprehensive schools including Caerleon Comprehensive School and King Henry VIII School Abergavenny.