A YOUNG Prince of Wales paid a visit to Monmouth in 1975 and was shown around the museum by curator Keith Kissack.

He was shown the Nelson Collection, a bequest to the town of Monmouth upon the 1923 death of Lady Georgiana Llangattock - wife of John Rolls, 1st Baron Llangattock, and mother of Charles Rolls - who had amassed a collection of Admiral Horatio Nelson memorabilia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The museum opened there in 1924 in the former gymnasium on Glendower Street which the Llangattock family donated to the town to mark the coming of age of John Maclean Rolls in 1891 - now converted into flats.

The Prince then visited the Roundhouse on top of the Kymin and planted a tree, watched by a young Nick Hartland: “I scrambled up the Kymin to see him plant an oak next to the Naval Temple in the gloom, watched by me, a schoolmate and about five others. Didn’t get a lift back down in the Bentley though,” he added.

The Prince then visited Monmouth School for Boys and was shown around by Headmaster Robert Glover and given a tour of the school, watched by a young Desmond Pugh.