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| This is our new local information section.
Below you will find vital details of important services
from around Newport, including Local Authority details,
Hospital and local Police force details and a comprehensive
guide to Newport itself. |
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| Princess Royal
Hospital, Telford | (01952)
641222 |
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| Main Switchboard
| (08457) 444888 | Website
Link |
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| Telford
& Wrekin Council | (01952)
202100 | Website
Link |
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Newport is one of Shropshire's most
handsome towns, with most of its outstanding features
displayed in its wide main street.
Originally a planned Norman town, set up as a centre for
fishing in the local meres, it received its borough charter
early in the twelfth century.
Its town crest incorporates three fishes, a reminder of
its original role, although most of the fisheries have
since been drained.
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Newport
Guildhall has changed a lot
over the years |
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The burgesses had an obligation to supply the royal household
with fresh fish whenever it was in the area.
Much of the medieval town was devastated by a great fire
in 1665 and comparatively few early buildings have survived.
The High Street now boasts an appealing mix of Georgian
and early Victorian architecture, creating one of Shropshire's
most pleasing townscapes.
Newport's Adams' Grammar School, which was a gift of William
Adams, has remained on the same site since it was built
in 1656.
Adams, who was a haberdasher based in Newport, left money
and property in Shropshire in trust with the Haberdashers
Livery Company in London for the running of a free school.
It is now one of Shropshire's best schools, its girls
and boys regularly achieving fine results, and is based
at the Longford Hall and Georgian town houses on the main
school site in High Street.
Newport Guildhall is perhaps one of the oldest and best
known buildings in the town - one of the few survivors
of the great fire.
The black and white timber-framed listed building, which
dates back as far as 1387, stands out in the High Street.
Like many old structures, it bears little resemblance
to its original state and has been added to and refurbished
over the years, swallowing up an alley in the process.
It is not clear what the building was used for, although
it may have been a base for a trade guild in the seventeenth
century.
In the 1860s, boxed windows and two shop fronts were added.
Later, the Guildhall housed shops including a baker and
a barber before falling into a state of disrepair.
However, since its £140,000 refurbishment in the
early 1990s it is now home to the town council and is
also used for weddings.
The Butter Cross is the local name in Newport for the
Puleston Cross, outside St Nicholas' Church.
It stood for many years beneath the Butter Market, hence
its name, although the original building has gone and
only the base of the stone cross remains.
The cross was erected in memory of Sir Roger de Puleston,
a thirteenth-century local knight who was killed fighting
the Welsh in Anglesey.
In 1632 William Barnfield built a house to sell butter
and cheese near the Puleston Cross and so Newport people
began to call the building the Butter Cross.
The Puleston Cross lost its head during the Civil War,
vandalised by the Parliamentarians.
The great fire of 1665 probably burnt down the Butter
Cross building, as well as destroying 162 homes, malthouses,
barns and stables at a cost of £30,000 to the town.
Newport's thirteenth-century St Nicholas' Church, in High
Street, was founded in the reign of Henry I.
It serves not only for religious services but also as
a venue for concerts and exhibitions.
Thomas Draper bought the church from the Abbot of Shrewsbury
in 1442 but it was not until 1700 that it gained its land
and the rectory was endowed.
The church has been restored twice, the south side in
1883 and the north side from 1890.
The west porch was built in 1904, a gift from Lady Boughey.
The buttressed tower, dating from 1309, was restored in
1910-11.
In the south side of the exterior, in a niche, is a knighted
figure statue, reputed to be Henry I.
Newport's most famous visitor was nineteenth-century novelist
Charles Dickens who stopped over in the town on many occasions
as he travelled the country getting inspiration for his
books and giving highly popular public readings of his
works.
He spent many a night at Newport's Lion Hotel, now Barclays
Bank, and tradition has it that he based the character
of Miss Haversham from Great Expectations on a local jilted
bride.
Sarah Parker lived at Chetwynd House in Chetwynd End,
known locally as Haversham House.
She was jilted on her wedding day and closed the room
where her marriage feast was to be held, never entering
it again.
Sixty years later, the door of the room was forced open
and there was the wedding table, decked out for the feast
but covered by cobwebs. |
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