Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2010 | Page 39

ISLAND HISTORY

February/March 2010

life

Photo: P38- Newport Square,
Inset: Valentine Gray Memorial
Left: Reproduction from
Speed's Map of 'Wight
Island", 1611. It will be
observed that Lugley Street
and Crocker Street are wrongly
indicated in transposed
positions.

to check on what was going on inside.
Next it’s St. James’s Square, one of the
original market squares planned by de

Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight from 1969

buried under the floor of the old church

to 1979.

until it was rebuilt and Queen Victoria

The County Club designed by John Nash

commissioned a monument for Elizabeth

Redvers. This was the beast market and

and built at a cost of £3,000 in 1811

by the Italian sculptor, Baron Marochetti.

where the champion beast’s horns were

stands at the corner of the square. Nash

It stands in the chapel on the north side

gilded with gold at the Gilten Market in

also designed the Guildhall further down

of the Minster and there’s a stained glass

December.

the High Street, built in 1813 on the site

window above the monument called ‘The

of the old Town Hall and Cheese Cross.

Maiden’s Window’ that was subscribed

their annual hunt but in 1927 the market

The building houses the Museum of Island

by the young women of Newport. The

was moved to South Street and that

History and the tourist board office but

church became a Minster in 2008.

closed in 1983 to make way for Safeway’s

Nash’s design was spoilt in 1887 when

In medieval times, the butchers’

Supermarket (now Morrisons’ Store). The

a clock tower was added to one side of

Shambles, a row of butchers’ stalls,

bus terminus was also in the square until

the beautiful symmetrical building to

stood to the north of the church and

a bus station was built in South Street.

commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden

the Corn Exchange was where you’ll see

Jubilee.

the classical columns of the Unity Hall

The horses and hounds met here for

Writing in 1780 Hassell says the Island
farmers’ daughters were famous for their

St. Thomas’s Square is dominated by

beauty and the local gentry would come

Newport Minster. The original church,

house (Olivo Restaurant) was named after

to see them selling butter, eggs and fowls

built in 1173 by another Richard de

the legend about Frances Trattle, a girl

at their stalls on market days. Newport

Redvers, was called St. Thomas á Becket

who gave a rose to Charles I when he

had two pounds for stray animals, one

but diplomatically changed its name to

rode through the town.

in St. James’s Square and another in Pyle

St. Thomas the Apostle during Henry VIII’s

Street. The miscreants were rounded

reign when the King proclaimed Becket a

negotiations for the Treaty of

up by a man with the wonderful title

traitor.

Newport between the King and the

building. The Rose and Cro v