Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2010 | Page 40

life

ISLAND HISTORY

February/March 2010

dates from 1701 and the plague of 1584

stand against the wall of the Lord Louis

opposite The Medina Railway Tavern, the

ceased here. There are three fire marks

library. Church Litten has a splendid

only reminder of the railway that started

on the wall - insurance companies would

Tudor gateway and a memorial from the

operating in 1862 and closed in 1966.

send fire brigades to attend a fire but if

people of the town to Valentine Gray, the

What was left of the station disappeared

the building did not have their fire mark

sweep’s boy who died from ill-treatment.

under Newport bye-pass.

they would leave it to burn.
With so many thatched timber-framed

Further down the High Street I see

Newport is bursting with history. In

County Hall, built in 1938 with an Art

Crocker Street there was The Blue Jenny

houses in the town, a fire would be a

Deco front elevation on the left side

charity school and a statue of a girl

major catastrophe and around 1600 the

of the building. But I make a detour

holding a bible and a new penny in her

council ordered that only stone, tiles

into Quay Street with its gracious

hand stands over the door. More than

or slate could be used for roofs and in

air of prosperity and Georgian and

200 years ago, female ‘waifs and strays’

1640 provided a fire engine to be kept in

Dutch-gabled houses. Sea Street has Seal

were trained for domestic work while in

the church. North Street was renamed

House, a merchant’s house with the sign

1618 Sir Richard Worsley founded the

Crocker Street after the crockers, makers

“Frederick King Licensed to sell Beer by

Worsley Almshouses at the St. James’s

of earthenware utensils, were banished

retail to be drunk on the premises” over

Street end of Crocker Street to house six

because of the risk of fire. In the 16th

the door.

poor widows.

century fires had to be extinguished when

Sadly, five of the 18th century riverside

I wander into Holyrood Street. The local

the curfew bell in Watchbell Lane was

warehouses were demolished but the

prison or Bridewell used to be here and

rung.

ones converted into the Quay Arts Centre

there were assembly rooms next to Read’s

have retained their traditional style.

Posting Establishment where you can still

As there was no burial ground in the
town at the time of the plague (St. Mary’s

Full marks for the imaginative conversion

see their name over the archway to the

at Carisbrooke held the right of burial

of the Mew Langton Brewery site. Years

for Newport) the plague victims were

ago barges loaded with barrels were

buried in Church Litten, a field used for

poled through a tunnel to Little London

the ground in 1377 when it was raided by

archery. It was a cemetery until the 19th

but the Brewmaster’s house of 1734

the French. The invaders were ambushed

century and some of the gravestones

remains and there are attractive flats

at Deadman’s Lane and Node Hill, now

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cobbled stableyard.
Newport barely survived being burned to

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