Newport is a market town and civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. It lies north-east of Telford, west of Stafford, and is near the Shropshire-Staffordshire border. The 2001 census recorded 10,814 people living in the parish, which rose to 11,387 by the 2011 census.
Toponym The Normans planned a new town called Novus Burgus roughly on the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Plesc.'The Saxon Boundary of Newport', Newport History Society suggested map p.7 (2008) The first market charter was granted by Henry I, and over time the name changed from Novus Burgus, to Nova Porta, to Newborough and finally to Newport in about 1220.
Location The site was chosen partly because of its location near the Via Devana (Roman Road, which ran from Colchester to Chester), and partly because of the number of fisheries (which are mentioned in the Domesday Survey). The River Meese, which flows from Aqualate Mere, lies to the north of the town.
Newport sits on a sandstone ridge on the eastern border of the Welsh Marches and west of the Aqualate Mere, the largest natural lake in the English Midlands. The area around it at the end of the last ice age was part of Lake Lapworth. Formed from melting glaciers, it covered a vast area of north Shropshire. There is evidence of pre-historic fishing in the area as two ancient log boats were uncovered from Newport. One has been preserved and is kept at Harper Adams University at nearby Edgmond.
The villages of Church Aston, Chetwynd Aston and Longford are adjoined to the south of Newport, though they remain in separate parishes. The village of Edgmond is located just to the west, separated by Cheney Hill, Chetwynd Park and the currently truncated Shrewsbury and Newport Canal.
Like many rural market towns, Newport was influenced by industry; it served the needs of the mining area to the east of Shropshire and was also affected by mass-produced industrial goods that replaced traditional crafts.
Newport's inland location can lead to very cold winters. It holds the record for the lowest temperature recorded in England, on 11 January 1982. This was cold enough to freeze diesel fuel in vehicles.
History
Newport was located in the historic kingdom of Mercia, near where Wreocensæte was once situated. Humans inhabited the surrounding area long before the creation of the town. Once established, Newport became a market town in the centre of the rural farming area between Stafford and Shrewsbury.
Saxon period In Saxon times, there were two settlements in the area. The first, Eastun, has been identified as Church Aston, and the second was Plaesc which is now Newport.Newport History Society, 'The Saxon Boundary of Newport' (2008) and Newport History Society, 'The History of Church Aston Boundary'(2007)' In AD 963, Plaesc was described as having a High Street, a stone quarry, and a religious community. The name Plaesc means a shallow pool.Newport History Society, 'The Saxon Boundary of Newport' (2008) p.15 Few signs of the Saxon settlement exist today, apart from the High Street, the Quarry, which could be either the Quarry on Stafford Road, or the Hole Meadow on Wellington Road. This has not been definitely confirmed.Newport History Society, 'The Saxon Boundary of Newport' (2008)p11-12
Norman to Tudor period At the time of the Norman Conquest, the land where Newport sits formed part of the manor of Edgmond, which William I gave as a gift along with the county of Shropshire to Roger, Earl of Shrewsbury. Henry I founded the borough, first called Newborough, after the manor came into his hands from Robert de Belesme.
Newport was omitted from the Domesday Book of 1086, but this is not uncommon. Other towns omitted include London, Tamworth and Ludlow, all boroughs since Saxon times.
The Normans planned the new town around the older one during the reign of Henry I. The wide main street was designed for its market, and the narrow burgage plots running at right angles to it are typical of Norman architecture and planning, though today only Newport Guildhall and Smallwood Lodge are clear signs of Tudor buildings, due to the 1665 fire which destroyed most of the High Street.
Medieval Newport flourished with trade in leather, wool and fish. Novoportans possessed the right to provide fish for the Royal table. The many half-timbered buildings surviving from the late medieval and Tudor periods confirm Newport's success, leading to the first market charter which was granted by Henry I.
The town is mentioned once by John Leland in a list of castles, though now no visible remains of the castle exist; however, the most probable location for it would have been the traditional site of a manor house at Upper Bar, where there is a fragment of a square, broad moat, or on the higher ground along the Forton road, where the Castle House school stands. As regards the moat, nearly square, forming by measurement an area of 60 square yards, two sides have been filled with rubbish. Nothing is known about the occupants of the moated site. It could have pre-dated the town or, perhaps more likely, could have been the manor house of the Audleys, who were granted the manor in 1227. By 1421, the manor house was in ruins.
One of the main reasons for Newport's early wealth was the surrounding fisheries and the chief service of the burgesses, being that of taking fish to the Royal court wherever it might be. This custom was continued after Henry III had granted the borough, with the manor of Edgmond, to Henry de Audley; Henry's son James granted in the middle of the 13th century that the burgesses need not take the fish anywhere except within the county of Shropshire.
The burgesses received certain privileges from Henry I; Henry II, in an undated charter, granted them all the liberties, rights and customs that they had enjoyed in the time of Henry I, including a guild merchant, which is mentioned in the quo warranto rolls as one of the privileges claimed by the burgesses. Confirmation charters were granted by Edward I in 1287 and Edward II in 1311, while the town was incorporated in 1551 by Edward VI, whose charter was confirmed by James I in 1604. The governing body consisted of a Lord High Steward, deputy steward, two water-bailiffs and 28 burgesses, but the corporation was abolished by the Municipal Corporations Act 1883, and a local board was formed, which, under the Local Government Act 1894, gave place to an urban district council.
Stuart to Regency period In 1665, many buildings were damaged in the Great Fire of Newport, which started in the home of a local blacksmith and destroyed the homes of 162 families (without causing deaths) to the then-value of £30,000 (£5.6M in 2025) and only a few of the medieval structures remain. Report by Megan Jones. However, there remain many fine Regency and Georgian frontages built on the site of the former Norman plots. This allowed the main streets of Newport to be wider and less cluttered than those of the other towns of its age.
Local landed estates
By the 19th century, Newport was surrounded by large estates that came right to the verge of the town, determining size and development. The vivary and open fields at Norbroom had gone making the town dependent on its rural hinterland. The few fields that remained were for hay or cattle, forming a small green belt. These estates exerted a powerful influence on the town, something obvious in the deference shown and respect paid to these landed families until at least the First World War.
Beginning in the southwest of the town was the largest estate, the Lilleshall estate of the Duke of Sutherland. This dates from the dissolution of the monasteries, the lands of Lilleshall Abbey being purchased in 1539 by James Leveson of Wolverhampton.
The next estate was that in the south-east of Woodcote Hall, a smaller one belonging to the Cotes family.
On the west between Lilleshall and the town was the Longford Estate of the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, sold in 1789 to Ralph Leeke of Wellington who had made his fortune in the East India Company.
North of the town is the Chetwynd Park estate of the Pigotts, bought in 1803 by Thomas Borrow of north Derbyshire who changed his surname to Burton Borough.
The Aqualate Estate to the east lies mostly in Staffordshire.
20th century The town was fortunate to avoid civilian casualties during the Second World War when on Christmas Eve 1944, a V-1 flying bomb launched from a Heinkel bomber and aimed at Manchester landed in a field east of Newport, about 300 yards from the Newport to Gnosall road. This bomb is now on display at Royal Air Force Museum Cosford.
The passenger service on the railway line between Stafford and Wellington was withdrawn in 1964 as a result of the Beeching Axe, and the line closed completely in 1967. The track was lifted in 1969, and the Newport end was subsequently redeveloped for housing.
In the 1960s to early 1970s, when the population of Newport was nearer 3000, over a third of the local workforce was employed at Serck Audco Valves, Greenwood Moore, Kwiz Feather Flights etc. All of this industry and large-scale employment has since gone - mostly during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
On 23 November 1981, an F1/T2 tornado which formed over the nearby civil parish of Chetwynd later moved over Newport, causing some damage in the town.
At Harper Adams University College just outside Newport in Edgmond, on 11 January 1982 the English lowest temperature weather record was broken (and is kept to this day): .
Modern-day Newport Newport is now predominantly a commuter town, with people travelling to Telford, Shrewsbury, Stafford, Wolverhampton and beyond for employment.
Previously, very little redevelopment happened in Newport from the 1960s—attention going instead to nearby towns including Wellington and Oakengates, which make up the new town of Telford—until the Telford and Wrekin Council borough towns incentive was brought about in 2007. The town received major investments over the following years, including a major redevelopment of the canal and surrounding area, the lower bar of the High Street area, planned housing, bars and restaurants set to line the canal. New sporting facilities, including a climbing wall in the Springfield area of the town, were provided.
In the spring of 2010, the first stage of the town's £1.5million regeneration began, with the £250,000 and £300,000 redevelopment of Victoria Park behind the now-defunct The Royal Victoria Hotel. The next stage of the regeneration, which was mainly focused on the High Street area of the town and Central square, involved re-surfacing the High-Street pavements and changing the design of the High Street around the Puleston Cross, removing the cobblestones and replacing them with paving and the traced outline of the ancient market hall.
In July 2011, Telford and Wrekin Council unveiled plans for green land off the A518 bypass. The proposals included hundreds of new homes, a new supermarket, a business park and improvements to Burton Borough School. Newport Advertiser - Revealed: massive plans for Newport
House prices in the town are the highest in the TF postcode area (including the towns of Telford and Market Drayton) and among the highest in the county.
The town is currently attempting to acquire Transition Towns and Fairtrade Town statuses.
Facilities and places of interest
The High Street The main street in Newport follows the Norman design. This resulted in the distinctive long wide High Street, split into three parts, upper bar, lower bar and St Mary's street, with the centre of the high street being the 19th-century Town Hall and Market Hall completed in March 1860.