PHOTOGRAPHED more than a century ago when it was a well-known local landmark, this was "t'Owd Gentleman's Grave" down the hillside below Oldfield.

The Old Gentleman was James Mitchell, "proprietor and occupier of Oldfield House", who died in 1835 at the age of 72. He had spent the greater part of his life as a landscape gardener and steward, "surveying and collecting notes" he was to boast, "in every county in the Kingdom of England, Monmouthshire excepted." He was the author of Dendrologia; or a Treatise of Forest Trees, published in 1827.

The story goes that, some time before his death, he instructed his servants to roll a large stone down the hill below Oldfield, telling them that he wanted to be buried wherever it came to rest. He rewarded them with a gallon of seven-year-old ale and a shilling each.

This photograph was taken by James Wood, son of a former Oldfield House servant.