Gwent was, between about the 6th and 11th centuries, one of the kingdoms or principalities of mediæval Wales, traditionally lying between the rivers Wye and Usk in what later became known as the Welsh Marches.

The area has been occupied since the Paleolithic, with Mesolithic finds at Goldcliff and growing activity during the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman period.

The Middle Age Welsh kingdom of Gwent was traditionally the area between the rivers Usk, Wye and Severn. To the north, the area adjoined Ewyas and Ergyng (later Archenfield). Gwent came into being after the Romans had left Britain, and was a successor state drawing on the culture of the pre-Roman Silures tribe and ultimately a large part of their Iron Age territories. It took its name from the civitas capital of Venta Silurum, perhaps meaning "Market of the Silures". In the post Roman period, the territory around Venta became the successor kingdom of Guenta, later Gwent, deriving its name directly from the town through the normal sound change in the Brythonic languages from v to gu. The town itself became Caerwent, "Venta fort".

Hazel Court (10 February 1926 – 15 April 2008) was an English actress best known for her roles in horror films during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Court was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, lived in the Boldmere area and attended Boldmere School and Highclare College. Her father was G.W. Court, a notable cricketer who played for Durham CCC. At the age of fourteen, she studied drama at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Alexandra Theatre, also in Birmingham.

At the age of sixteen Court met director Anthony Asquith in London, which won her a brief part in the 1944 film Champagne Charlie. Court won a British Critics Award for her role as a crippled girl in Carnival (1946). She also appeared in Holiday Camp (1947) and Bond Street (1948). Her first role in a fantasy film was in Ghost Ship (1952). One of Court's most remembered films is the cult classic Devil Girl from Mars (1954). She trained at the Rank Organisation's "charm school".

Court wanted to act in comedy films, and from 1957 to 1958 she was in the TV comedy series Dick and the Duchess. But she continued to appear in horror films. In 1957 Court had a part in the film The Curse of Frankenstein, where she gained the status of a "cult siren," partly due to her display of cleavage. In the 1957-58 television season, she appeared in the CBS sitcom filmed in England, Dick and the Duchess, in the role of Jane Starrett, a patrician Englishwoman married to an American insurance claims investigator living in London, a role played by Patrick O'Neal. Court travelled back and forth between Hollywood and England, appearing in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She had parts in A Woman of Mystery (1958), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) and Doctor Blood's Coffin (1961) among others.