There’s been a great deal of interest in the tale of the battered leather trunk that found its way from a dressmaker once based at 13 Nevill Street in Abergavenny to an attic in Caversham Heights in Berkshire (Chronicle August 25).

We still can’t ‘plot’ the trunk’s journey but thanks to several of our readers, we can reveal some intriguing information about the dressmaker AND the intended recipient.

We first heard about the trunk in an email from Clare Biddiss in Caversham who told us that the trunk was originally discovered by her partner Rob and his first wife when they moved to a house in Caversham Heights in 1996.

It survived several house moves before it ended up gathering dust in Clare and Rob’s garage and was destined for the waste tip until something told Clare to hold fire while she researched its history.

The sender’s name was Madlle. Ardin and it was addressed to Harold Price of Springfield Road, Abergavenny.

Clare passed on the information to a local Facebook forum and one of its members found, via Google, that 13 Nevill Street was now the home of the Abergavenny Chronicle.

Research revealed that Harold Price was a local ironmonger’s apprentice.

It also suggested that Mlle Ardin was ‘a Belgian refugee from World War I’ but in fact she had a completely different – and even more intriguing – back story.

Mademoiselle Cecile Marie Ardin was, in fact, born in 1862 in Chambery in the Rhône-Alpes region of south-eastern France, near the border with Switzerland.

By the age of 19, according to the 1881 census, she was working as a nursemaid at 48 Princes Gardens, St Mary’s, Westminster.

Recorded as ‘the wife of the household owner’ was Charlotte A Drummond. Also registered at that address were five children and numerous staff including a governess, cook, ladies maid and butler.

In 1891 Mlle Ardin was working as a lady’s maid with a family in Bournemouth, with the name or the address ‘Collingwood’.

In the 1901 census, however, she is recorded at No 11 Nevill Street in Abergavenny, where she was ‘head of the household’, describing herself as dressmaker/owner.

Registered at the same address were Cecile M Mills, aged 7, visitor from Birmingham, Jenny Eloise Courvoisier, aged 34, assistant dressmaker from Paris, Edith M Jackson, 18, assistant dressmaker from Blaenavon and Sarah Ann Dando, aged 19, general servant from Castleford, Yorkshire.

In 1911, aged 48, she had moved one door up to 13 Nevill Street, describing herself as ‘retired dressmaker, French/Swiss’.

Living at the same address were Evaline May (or possibly Mary) Williams, visitor aged 19, Nellie Cox, servant aged 21, and William Black Mills boarder and clerk aged 15.

There is then a long gap in the records until 1939 when she was living at Hill Grove, Mardy with Helen Downes, companion/help.

Five years later, in 1944, an obituary in the Chronicle reported that Mlle Ardin had died aged 82, at another address in Abergavenny – Bringewood in Avenue Road.

The article stated that she had gone back to live in France in 1924, returning to Abergavenny in 1939 – and it is here that some of the gaps in the story were unexpectedly filled in by one of our readers, whose family have a long association with the town.

Jocelyn’s maiden name was Downes, her father Richard became Borough treasurer in Abergavenny after serving in the RAF.

The family owned properties in Avenue Road but lived in a large house called Bringewood, built by Jocelyn’s great grandfather in 1914.

“My father, who had lost his mother when he was six, was brought up there by members of the extended family, including his aunt Helen (known as Nellie) and my great grandfather.

“Aunt Nellie (my great aunt) at some point became Mademoiselle Ardin’s companion, presumably after my father had grown up and left home, and they went everywhere together.

“We have pictures of them in Bournemouth and also in Cannes in the South of France.

“It’s strange that the Chronicle obituary refers to Mademoiselle Ardin living in France from 1924 to 1939 because we believe Aunt Nellie was only there for the last three years. Perhaps Mademoiselle had homes in both places.

“We have no idea how they came to know each other, although my aunt was a dressmaker too.

“She always referred to Mlle Ardin as ‘Madame’ – and ‘Madame’ always referred to her as ‘Hélène’.

“She wrote to my father when he was in the RAF in Iraq, ending the letter ‘Madame sends her love’.

“All we know really is that Madame had businesses at one time at 11 and 13 Nevill Street. She gave 13 Nevill Street the name ‘Nidra House’ - which is Ardin spelt backwards.

“We don’t think she owned those properties – we think it’s more likely she rented them and also Hill Grove, although it’s feasible she sold a property to buy somewhere in Cannes.

“Many of that generation of businesspeople in Abergavenny knew her well.

“The late Herbert Close, for example, who owned an antique shop in Cross Street, remembered dancing with her at a function.

“I was always told that she had a regal bearing – but in the photographs of her with Aunt Nellie she was always smiling and looked as if she was good fun.

“We’d always thought Aunt Nellie led a very quiet life until we discovered she’d jetted off to live in the south of France with Madame!

“We imagine they came back to Abergavenny in 1939 because of the outbreak of war.

“She and Aunt Nellie at some point between 1939 and 1944 moved into my family’s home of Bringewood, perhaps because she was ill.

“When she died on January 6 1944 she left everything to my great aunt in her will.

“There was no mention of any family or of her owning any property.

“The will, which was made in 1936, listed mainly stocks and shares in companies like the Calico Printers Association, Central Argentine Railway Company and British North Borneo Company.”

The probate office shows that her estate was valued at £2,786 - the equivalent today of more than £100,000.

Aunt Nellie survived Madame by 20 years, dying at the age of 84.

Another of our readers, Graham Hawker, tells us that the intended recipient of the trunk was Harold Vivian Price, born in 1889 and son of Robert Price of Robert Price and sons, Builders Merchants of Abergavenny and beyond.

On September 9 1920 Harold had married Janet Leontine Mills, whose parents were Thomas Grant Mills and Leontine Mills.

The 1911 census shows that Mlle Ardin had a visitor named William Black Mills (born in Handsworth) – and this was Harold’s brother-in-law.

Similarly, in 1901 she had a visitor named Cecile M. Mills (born in Handsworth) – Harold’s sister-in-law.

Cecile Mills’ full name was Cecile Marie Mills. She had, almost certainly, been named after Cecile Marie Ardin.

The mother of the Mills children, Leontine Marie Mills was also born in France (in Meuse).

Both French women had in the 1880s/1890s been domestic servants working in London.

It’s not clear at what stage they got to know each other - possibly in France, possibly in London. It is also possible that they were related in some way.

What is clear, though, is that they were well acquainted and that through that relationship Harold Vivian Price and Janet Leontine Mills met.

• If anyone can now tell us how a French domestic servant working for a well-to-do family in Westminster ended up with a dressmaking business in Abergavenny we’d love to hear from them.

Incidentally, on-going investigations into paranormal activities at 13 Nevill Street have suggested that the building is haunted by a friendly, cigarette smoking ghost. Does anyone know if Mlle Ardin smoked - or could that be another story altogether?