BLESSED with castles, rivers and woodland and surrounded by rolling hills and mountains, picturesque Monmouthshire has been voted the number one place to live among Wales's rural local authorities writes JOE EVANS.

Research carried out by The Halifax Rural Areas Quality of Life Survey found that people in Monmouthshire have the best quality of life of all the rural Welsh counties.

The research was based on residents health, life expectancy, employment, school performance and regional climate.As well as beautiful scenery such as the Black Mountains, Monmouthshire also produces its own wines with many vineyards scattered around the region.

In recent years the county has become very well known in the world of food, with the Abergavenny Food Festival attracting thousands of people to its hotels and restaurants each year.

It also boasts two of Wales's four Michelin star restaurants The Crown at Whitebrook and the Walnut Tree in Llanddewi Skirrid, Abergavenny.

However, these aren't the county's only recent accolades. Grosmont was last month ranked as one of the best villages to live in Britain,with its ancient church and castle nestled away between the Wye valley and the Brecon Beacons national park, it has been described as an area of natural beauty.

Gwen Jones of the Abergavenny and District Tourism Association said about the recent acknowledgements the county has received.

"We deserve it, we've got good road links, railway stations and beautiful scenery. It will be great for tourism in general, especially the food festival'

History shows that parts of Monmouthshire have changed hands between the Welsh and the English over the centuries. Its status as a Welsh county fell into doubt in 1543 when it was omitted from the second Act of Union which established the court of Great Session legal system in Wales. As a result until 1900 certain Welsh laws didn't apply to Monmouthshire and it was not until 1974 that it was re-granted its Welsh status.

However lovely Monmouthshire is ,there is still room for improvement because despite being ranked number one in Wales it still doesn't qualify for a top 50 place when it comes to UK counties, it finished just 83rd out of 140 local authority areas in the survey.