Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for NEWPORT

NEWPORT, a town, a parish, and a sub-district, in the Isle of Wight. The town stands on the river Medina, at the terminus of the Cowes and Newport railway, at the end of the Medina navigation, in the N E vicinity of Carisbrooke, 1 mile N of the centre of the island, and 5 S of Cowes. It was founded in the early part of thereign of Henry I., by Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon and lord of the island; was designed to be the port of Carisbrooke, and therefore was called Newport; waschartered, in the time of Henry II., by the third Richard de Redvers, who called it the New Borough of Medina; rose in importance as Carisbrooke declined; was burntby the French in 1377; took part with the parliament in the civil wars of Charles I.; was the scene of highpolitical negotiations during. the time of Charles I. 's imprisonment in Carisbrooke Castle; became, for 61 days, at the grammar school, the place of Charles' mimic court, whence he was suddenly seized for abrupt removal to Hurst Castle; and, at the restoration of Charles II., was one of the first places in the kingdom to recognise the new order of political events. Thomas James, who wrote learnedly against Roman Catholicity, and died in 1622, Richard James, who published an account of his travels in Russia, assisted Selden in his work on the Arundel marbles, rendered service in the formation of the Cottonian library, and died in 1638, and Sir Thomas Fleming, lord chief justice of England, who acquired bad notorietyby his judgment in the "great case of impositions, " werenatives.

The town stands on a gentle slope of the Medina'svalley; is nearly encompassed, at a pleasant distance, with low rounded hills; enjoys well-wooded and verypleasing environs; looks well as seen from numerous vantage-grounds on the surrounding hills; consists chiefly of five streets running E and W, and of three running N and S, all wide and well paved; and presentsa neat, clean, and cheerful aspect. The town hall was built in 1816, after designs by Nash, at a cost of £10,000; has, on one side, an Ionic portico, on another, an Ionic colonnade; is disposed, throughout the basement, in a market house; has, in the upper part, a handsome room, with a portrait of Sir Leonard W. Holmes; and occupiesthe site of a plain old gabled building, in which conferences were held between Charles I. and the parliamentary commissioners. The Isle of Wight institution, in St. James-square, was built in 1810, after designs by Nash, at a cost of £3,000; has a plain yet pleasing front of Swannage stone; and contains a good library and reading-rooms, a billiard-room, and other apartments. The museum, in Lugley-street, contains a well-arranged series of fossils gathered from the various strata of the island, and a collection of the island's antiquities of Celtic, Roman, Saxon, and later dates. Carisbrooke Castle, the Isle of Wight house of industry, Parkhurst prison, and the Albany barracks, though not in the town, are so near as to be associated with it in the minds of tourists; and the last contribute so largely to the throngs on its streets as to give it almost the appearance of a garrison-town. St. Thomas' church was built in 1854-6, after designs by Daukes, at a cost of £12,000; is in the early decorated English style; consists of clere-storied nave, gabled aisles and chancel, N and S chapels, and N and S porches, with lofty W tower; and contains a quaintly carved pulpit of 1636, a very beautiful monument by Marochetti to the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I., erected by Queen Victoria, a handsome marble monument to Sir Edward Horsey, captain of the island in the time of Elizabeth, and a splendid medallion tablet, by Marochetti, to the late Prince Consort. The previous St. Thomas' church was built about 1173, by Richard de Redvers; ranked merely as a chapel of ease to the church of Carisbrooke; was a large, quaint, low building, in heavy transition Norman; consisted of three aisles, with an embattled tower; and contained Sir E. Horsey's monument and the remains of the Princess Elizabeth, which were removed to the new church. Two other churches, St. John's-Node-Hill and St. Paul's-Barton, have connexion with the town; the former a broad aisleless, towerless building, in a pseudo-Gothic style, erected, about 1840, on the road to Shide and Rookley; the lattera later erection, in the Norman style, with semicircularapse, and with a tower and spire, on the road by Staplers-Heath to Ryde. Independent chapels are in St. James-street and Node-Hill, and the latter contains a monument to the missionary Tyerman; a Baptist chapel is in Castle-Hold; a Quaker's chapel and a Unitarianchapel are in High-street; chapels for Wesleyans, Primi-tive Methodists, United Free Methodists, and Roman Catholics, are in Pyle-street; a Brethren's chapel is in Union-street; a Bible Christians' chapel is in Quay-street; and an Irvingite chapel, or Catholic and Aposto-lic church, is in Holyrood-street. The old cemetery is adjacent to Corsham-street; was formed, at a visitation of the plague in 1582; was, from time to time, enlarged; has a good Tudor entrance-gateway; and is now shut up. The new cemetery lies on the road to Ryde, and wasopened about 1 858. The grammar school stands in James-street; was founded in 1612, by Lord Chief-Justice Fleming; is the same building in which Charles I. held his mimic court, with antique gabled front unaltered, and the interior little changed; and has an endowed income of £147. The national schools, on the Carisbrooke road, were erected in 1816. The girls' school, in Lugley-street, was established in 1761, and has an endowed income of £84. There are a mechanics' institute, an agricultural library, and two suites of alms-houses.

The town has a head post-office, ‡ designated Newport, Isle of Wight, a railway station with telegraph, threebanking offices, and two good hotels; and is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, a polling-place and place of election, a sub-port to Cowes, and practically the capital of the island. Markets are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays: fairs are held at Whitsuntide and Michaelmas; commerce is carried on in malt, corn, flour, and timber; and a good manufacturing trade exists in cracknels, lace, mats, brushes, and tobacco-pipes. Water is supplied, through pipes, from springs at Carisbrooke. The town was re-chartered by Charles II.; sent two members to parliament once in the time of Edward I., and always from the time of Elizabeth; has continued, with alteration of boundaries, to send two since the time of the reform act; and is governed, under the new municipal act, by a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors. The old boundaries included only 63 acres; but the newboundaries include 166 acres, and comprise all Newport parish, and parts of the parishes of Carisbrooke, North-wood, St. Nicholas-in-the-Castle, and Whippingham; and they are the same parliamentarily as municipally. Corporation income in 1855, £1, 777. Amount of property and income tax charged in 1863, £2, 581. Electorsin 1833, 421: in 1863, 643. Pop. in 1851, 8,047; in 1861, 7, 934. Houses, 1, 591. Pop. of the Carisbrookeportion, 2, 829; of the Northwood portion, 1,019; of the St. Nicholas portion, 183; of the Whippingham portion, 84. The parish was formerly part of Carisbrooke, and was separated thence so late as Nov. 1858. Acres, 80. Real property, £18,095; of which £600 are in gas-works. Pop. in 1851, 3, 994; in 1861, 3, 819. Houses, 730. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Winchester. Value, £175.* Patron, Queen's College, Oxford.—The sub-district contains also five other parishes and an extra-parochial tract. Acres, 19, 484. Pop., 13, 761. Houses, 2, 418.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a town, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Newport CP/Ch       Newport SubD       Hampshire AncC
Place: Newport

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