Newport: A Potted History

Much like Wellington, the advent of Newport’s life as a town was marked by Royal decree. Although there is some evidence of an earlier settlement in the area, the medieval footprint of the modern day municipality (known until around 1220 as Novus Burgus) was laid out in the Twelfth Century following the grant of a market charter by Henry I. Essentially a commercial venture, the development was based in no small part on the plentiful stocks of fish to be found in the surrounding wetlands, of which the Weald Moors were a significant constituent. Such was the reputation of Newport’s fisheries that their existence continues to be marked today, both in the town’s crest (which contains three fishes) and in the name of the local parish church of St Nicholas — the patron saint of fishermen! Standing in the centre of town, this ancient place of worship is notable for its Fourteenth Century tower and stained glass by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, which hails from a major late Nineteenth Century overhaul of the building.

Although Wellington and Newport both share a planned medieval street grid, neither town shows much evidence of its ancient origins above ground level. In Wellington, this owes much to overzealous Victorian council officials (who swept many of its half-timbered buildings away) but in Newport the explanation lies in the great fire of 1665, which rendered 166 families homeless and caused untold damage. What Newport eventually inherited from the ravages of the inferno was the picture of Georgian elegance familiar to generations of Novoportans ever since. The next great event to shape the locality arrived in the 1830s, when the Shropshire Union Canal cut a course through the north of the town, providing another link to the Weald Moors — where it connected the Shrewsbury Canal to the national network at Wappenshall. Although it later fell out of use, several ‘in-water’ sections of the former waterway remain, including the remnants of a wharf that was created from a portion of one of Newport’s medieval fishing pools.