Zombie Barnacles

We live in an era of fake news, though it may be more accurately termed ‘Pick-and-Mix’ news. Facts are omitted, others given undue prominence, but all interpreted and glossed to appeal to our separate and vociferous tribes.

In this beautifully produced book, William Cross does a scholarly hatchet job on the National Trust, the present guardians of Tredegar House. He is concerned with facts and demolishing the myths that have encrusted themselves around the now defunct Morgan dynasty like barnacles—Zombie barnacles—for they have an unholy life of their own. It’s part and parcel of human nature, I suppose, for it is also fake news that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction often trumps truth.  We love a good story, and sometimes truth just gets in the way. In this respect, Will Cross has done an heroic job. Time will see if the zombie barnacles are truly dead.

For the curious, these are just some of the myths explored and demolished.

The Morgans were descended from Welsh princes

Tredegar House has 365 windows, one for every day of the year. (It has seventy-three)

Henry Morgan the pirate was an ancestor of the Morgans of Tredegar House.

In 1758, Charles Gould married Jane Morgan for love. 

Few married for love in that day and age. We have a contemporary account of the union:

“I have,” answered he (Mr Thomas Morgan of Ruperra) “two girls. One is handsome; the other, not so well endowed by nature. In order to repair that deficiency, I mean to give her fifteen hundred pounds as a marriage portion. To her sister I shall only give one thousands. Which of them would you wish to have?”

Gould replied: “Allow me to enquire, which is the eldest?”

“The plain girl,” Morgan replied.

“Then if you please, sir, I’ll have her.”

Both sides were satisfied, especially when Charles changed his name from Gould to Morgan in order to preserve the family line. 

A tale that is not a myth but an interesting story nevertheless concerns the two sons of Charles and Jane—John Morgan and Charles Morgan. Both fought in the American revolutionary wars, John killed in action at sea, and Charles captured by the Americans at York Town. Before the surrender, an American soldier, Captain Huddy was captured and executed without trial. Hardly surprising. As Captain in the Monmouth militia he murdered those who remained loyal to the Crown. Even so, it was a bad call by a CaptainLippincott. It is, though, worth bearing in mind that Huddy had murdered several of Lippincott's relatives.

In consequence George Washington ordered thirteen British officers to draw lots for who would be executed in retaliation for Captain Huddy’s death. They were each handed a folded paper—twelve blank and one with one just one word, Unfortunate. Charles Morgan was fortunate. Captain Asgill of the Coldstream Guards less so, opening up his death sentence. All ended well however when he was reprieved after an intervention by the Queen of France. A different age.

But back to the myths:

Sir Briggs was buried standing up. To explain, Sir Briggs was a Morgan horse that survived the Crimean war and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Named after a servant of that name ‘Briggs’ the horse was unnoficially knighted and was buried standing up. There is no evidence at all for those last two claims.  

A golden gondola on Tredegar Park lake

Evan Morgan’s parrot bit Herman Goering’s nose.

After Evan’s death, a  black box of secrets was buried in the grounds of Tredegar House

The myths are first class and you want them to be true, but all are beautifully debunked in this readable and lavishly produced book.

How do you lose a tunnel?

Newport has a rich underground life with cellars, many interconnected stretching from street to street.

None of these cellars, basements and tunnels are as yet inhabited by werewolves, vampires or ghouls but the premises are there, desirable and vacant to let.

One of the more interesting and persistent legends are those focused on the supposed secret passages in and around Newport Castle. One went under the river Usk to the parish of Christchurch. Who built it, or why is not explained, nor has the tunnel been found.

One tunnel was, however, and then subsequently lost. Only in Newport could you lose a tunnel.
Between 1890 and 1899 Newport castle was a Lloyd and Yorath brewery. Its water came from an old well in the old castle grounds but by 1891 its water had all but disappeared.

Harry Jones, the brewery foreman, went down the well to investigate, and there he discovered a stone-walled tunnel heading in the direction of Shaftsbury Street. With only a candle to guide them, Jones and another man explored the tunnel, wading through a fast flowing stream to its source at a well in Thomas Street.

In 1901 the last of the town’s wells (Baneswell) was closed and sealed. The water would have had a meaty taste because the well was clogged with dead rats. Rats not ghouls infested Newport’s underground. In 1920 16,000 rats were trapped or killed in the town. Three years later several babies were bitten in their prams by rats, probably in revenge.

But that didn’t stop the search for the ‘lost tunnel’.

In 1931 an employee of the Borough Engineers Department rediscovered the tunnel whilst draining an overfull well. His tunnel forked, with one branch going on to Thomas Street and the other going left towards the Old Green Hotel which then stood on the corner of High Street and Dock Street.

Again, who built the tunnels and why, have never been discovered, but at this point the question becomes academic because the tunnels were once again mislaid. Busy roads now surround the castle, but during their building no tunnels were found. In 1951 eighty five year old Harry Jones was asked to relocate the tunnels, but too old perhaps, he failed.
For those interested, Haydn Davis has written several interesting chronicles on Newport's history, all available in Newport Library. But my brief survey has now ended, probably not before time. Its only validity in what is essentially a record of one baffled spirit is that History is a consuming interest, along with the arcane. In Newport you have both.



Find the tunnel!

Where the ghosts are placed

If I live in a place, I like to know where the ghosts are placed. If I lived in anyone of the three houses numbered, 27 to 29 Stow Park Avenue I’d like to know I was drinking my coffee on the site of the Motte and Bailey Castle that Robert Fitzhamon first built there shortly after 1093; look out my window and see my fifteen serfs and cottars cultivating my surrounding 150 acres of arable land. Further down I’d glimpse the brown river that periodically engulfed the land, dismal mudflats and marsh as far as the eye could see.

Walking down Stow Hill I’d join the ghosts of C19th Chartists who, without any clear plan of action, allowed themselves to be dispersed by gun fire from the West Gate Hotel, remember that Eddy Curran’s grandfather was working on the newly build St Mary’s Catholic Church as the Chartists passed.

In the main street I’d imagine the 247 burgages, cattle pens, fish ponds and allotments; see the more substantial castle guarding a ford on the River Usk along with the four major roads leading to it. Now it hums with traffic, then it held five watchmen, six mounted and ten un-mounted soldiers with a larger force of three hundred men held in reserve. Without buildings to hinder my vision I’d see Robert de Hais’ estate at nearby Basseleg and my other knight’s estates at Maesglas, St Mellons and St Brides, know that each of them along with others owed me forty days of castle service, mounted and in full armour.

Despite a population of less than 600, it would have been a busy place. Protected by a castle and positioned at an important crossroad, Newport was a natural market town. Pedlars were encouraged to set up shops which in time became the present High Street. The main market was held once a week, each stall holder paying a tax to the Lord of the Manor, and an annual 15 day fair was held the 15th of August – the Feast of the Assumption.

As the market became more established the Normans decided that the ford, the main access point to the market, was no longer good enough. A bridge was needed.
The first bridge was very narrow, just wide enough for two carts to pass. The timber would have creaked and groaned along the full length of its 500 ft span under the tremendous tidal stresses it faced. It also seems to have been burnt or damaged on a fairly regular basis.
















In 1377, Hugh, the second Earl of Stafford granted land between Stow Hill and the River Usk shoreline to the Hermits of St. Augustine. They were called the Austin Friars and from that time on the people of Newport got used to the black gowned and hooded friars wandering around their streets. Pastry, shoe, and sportswear shops, the occasional pub, now occupy where their small abbey once stood. It was a place of refuge for the sick and blind, the homeless. The ghosts of the friars are still there amongst the pushchairs and shopping bags, the nightly drunks.














Perhaps, too, is the ghost of Henry II, Henry Plantagenet, ruler of an empire stretching from Scotland to the Pyrenees. Originally Duke of Anjou he inherited England and Normandy from this maternal grandfather William the Conqueror, swallowed up Brittany, and after snaffling up Eleanor on Aquitaine in marriage, controlled more of France than the French king himself. On hearing the legend that a freckled king who lost his freckles in the River Usk would one day rule all of Wales, he put the legend to the test, washing his face vigorously in the turgid river. His freckles remained but he seemed fairly philosophical with the result and Wales remained relatively free.

Ghosts however don’t have freckles so it seems unlikely that the turbulent king is still cleansing his face in the river, not when he has the Occitan to haunt. Newport is magical and seedy. It is also often wet and over crowded with ghosts.





The dispersal of the Chartists in C19th Newport

Owain Glyndwr - even worse than the plague

It was the black rat that spread the plague, but this rat, I think you'll agree, has attitude.














The best accounts of how the Black Death affected Gwent come from manorial rolls. These show that the Manors of Abergavenny, Monmouth, Usk and Caldicot suffered particularly badly with rent receipts less than a third of a normal year. There is no written evidence of how the Plague affected the small marsh settlement of Newport, then about 30 houses. What is of interest is that despite all the excavations and rebuilding of Newport, no plague pits have ever been discovered. This is either because so few people lived in Newport and/or we simply threw the dead bodies into the strong tidal waters of the Usk.

If there were only thirty or so houses in 1348 it was a different story in 1386 when Newport boasted between 200 – 300 burgages. Having said that, the whole town was only worth about £21 (32 dollars) in rent, and that included the mill and fisheries as well as the two hundred burgages, so rents must have been low.

But there were still further heights to climb. By 1400 Newport enjoyed a rental value of £57 (80 dollars).

A year or two later, the rental value of the town was assessed as nil.

The reason: Owain Glyndwr.






















Owain's strategy was to burn and destroy anything owned by, or of use to, the English, and to leave nothing on the land to help a pursuing army. As a result ordinary people suffered badly, both from the violence and the local famine that always followed.

In the Summer of 1402 the Glyndwr hordes entered Gwent from the North and scorched the earth through out the Usk valley. After laying waste to Crickhowell and Abergavenny they arrived at Newport. Within the day they destroyed the castle, the mill, and the bridge.

They badly damaged St, Woolos cathedral and the Austin Friary, drove off all the livestock and burned acres of standing crops. Every church in the moors of Caldicot and the Wentloog levels were similarly destroyed. The townspeople who had hidden in the forests returned to find the town a blackened ruin. Owain was the torch of freedom for many in Wales. He was just a torch for Newport – a curse worse far worse than plague.

When in 1403 King Henry IV's army was billeted in Newport the king found conditions so dreadful that he sent messengers to Bristol ordering ships to be loaded with flour, ale, wine, and salt fish for the starving people of Newport.




for Newport, Duerer's The Apocalpyse might apply more to Glyndwr than the plague it is more usually associated with.

Choose your friends carefully Part 2

After realising who his real friends were, i.e. those who held power, Gilbert de Clare achieved great things. In 1290 and in his forties, he married a twelve year old girl. She was Joan of Acre and the daughter of Edward I. Unfortunately Gilbert died five years later leaving behind a four year old son also called…Gilbert de Clare, along with an unresolved war with Morgan ap Meredydd of Machen and a devastated Newport.

Worse, the boy’s mother went on to scandalise both king and court.

Having delivered four children, and still an attractive teenager, Joan of Acre fell in love with a squire and secretly married him. Things turned out reasonably well. In 1307 both Joan and her father, the king of England died, and Gilbert de Clare junior, now sixteen years old, inherited the earldom of Gloucester and the Newport estates.

Gilbert de Clare junior was also rubbish in choosing his friends but unlike his father he was never given the chance to learn from his mistakes. The new king of England, Edward II, was Gilbert’s uncle but was only a few years older than Gilbert and the two men had grown up as boys together in the Royal Household. They became close friends and as Gilbert developed into a brave and daring warrior it is not surprising that the king found him useful.



The problem was, the new king was basically stupid. Just before the battle of Bannockburn Gilbert told the king that his men needed rest. The Scots were comfortable and well dug in. The English however were desperately tired from days of heavy marching. The king would have none of it. He accused his old friend of cowardice, and the furious Gilbert led his men into a suicidal charge that ended in his death. Probably the two men were as stupid as each other.

It took three years for the king to work out what to do with the Gloucester estates. They were divided out between Gilbert’s three sisters. Eleanor, who was married to the king’s favourite, Hugh Despenser, was given Glamorgan. Margaret, married to Hugh de Audley received Lower Gwent together with Newport, whilst Elizabeth and her husband Roger Damory gained the Lordship of Usk.

The king may have been stupid but Hugh Despenser was consumed by greed and used his power over a sexually ambiguous king. As friends go he was the most dangerous of all, persuading Edward to take the Newport lands from his brother-in-law and give them to him. Then he started ‘stealing’ other baronial estates so causing a major rebellion.



Hugh Despenser, who looks kind of sweet rather than powerful or sexy; but note how he's filched the de Clare coat of arms bottom right corner.













A huge force of over 11,000 men attacked Newport on the 4th of May 1321. They took the castle in 4 days causing immense damage in the area. The repair bill for the damaged castle was £600, a considerable sum in 1326. The corn crop was again destroyed, and the fact that 300 oak trees from Caerleon forest were needed for local repairs suggests that Newport bridge had also to be repaired.
Under pressure, the king banished Hugh Despenser but the following year, the love-sick king reinstated him, defeating the rebellious Barons in North Yorkshire at the battle of Boroughbridge.

Roger Damory, lord of Usk was sentenced to death but was spared because he was married to the King's niece. Another leading rebel, Roger Mortimer, was imprisoned whilst the king decided what to do with him. Such a mistake.



Isabella coming back from France















Roger Mortimer was the queen’s lover. (If Braveheart is to be believed, William Wallace preceded him.) Isabella, passionate, strong, and known as the ‘She-Wolf of France’ with good reason, loathed her husband along with the men he preferred to her. Escaping from prison Roger joined Isabella in France, along with her son, the future Edward III. Returning to England with 700 men they sparked off an even more serious rebellion. The king, along with the Despenser family fled west into Wales.
Hugh Despenser’s 90 year old father was ordered to defend his castle in Bristol but his soldiers rebelled against him. They handed him over to the rebels and the aged man was executed, whilst standing in full armour.
















Knowing the game was up, Hugh Despenser and the king crossed the river Wye in an attempt to reach Chepstow where they hoped to sail for Ireland or France. Unfortunately strong winds blew them back and they landed at Neath where they were captured. Despenser was hung drawn and quartered on a fifty foot high gibbet – one of the highest ever built for an execution.



There's a wonderfully quiet quality to this picture, almost as though a small crowd is gathering to watch a wall painting rather than a man being disembowelled.
















Edward suffered a more painful but less public fate. In Berkeley Castle he was pushed face down on to a table and his breeches ripped off. A hollowed bone was rammed up his back-side followed by a red hot poker. The guide at Berkeley recounts how his screams could be heard from over five miles away, which I believe because she looks old enough to have witnessed it.

Edward learnt the painful way the necessity of choosing your friends carefully, but I’m sure the ghost of Gilbert de Clare laughed merrily that night.

Choose your friends wisely, Part One.

The Red Baron

Gilbert de Clare inherited Newport and surrounding lands in a roundabout fashion. They initially belonged to the Countess Isabel, Grand-daughter of William, Earl of Gloucester. She can be excused for marrying King John; choice didn’t really come into it. King John however, despite his unexpected sagacity in granting Liverpool its first Town Charter, was not a woman’s man. He divorced Isabel but kept Newport. (wise choice)

When King John died, Newport along with other land around Gloucester was returned to Isabel, who bequeathed them to a close relative – Richard and, in turn, his son Gilbert de Clare.

Gilbert de Clare had a great way with names, beating Manfred von Richthofen to the title of the ‘Red Baron’. He showed less judgement in his choice of friends, but at least had the sense to change sides when the need arose.

The friend in question was Simon de Montfort who led a serious rebellion against John’s son, Henry III. For a time Simon de Montfort became one of the most powerful men in the realm, beating Henry in battle and imprisoning his son in Hereford castle. It was then he began making plans to take over Gilbert de Clare’s Welsh lands.

Simon was greedy and Gilbert was miffed. He changed sides, joining with Roger Mortimer to rescue the King’s son, the young Prince Edward. From Ludlow they raised forces loyal to the king and drove Simon de Montfort into Gwent where he captured Newport castle. By this time de Montfort was so desperate he was reduced to seeking help from the Welsh.

Llywelyn ap Gruffyd was happy to oblige, taking advantage of English troubles to increase Welsh power. Both men were disappointed. Simon de Montford was forced to retreat across the River Severn. Unfortunately his ships, crossing from Bristol to Usk, were ambushed by the Royal fleet, and de Montford, waiting to be picked up from Goldcliffe beach saw his rescue ships sunk.


















Simon de Montford’s tired, demoralised army were forced to retreat up the river Usk, wade through treacherous marshland, all the time pursued by Prince Edward’s army.






In one final pique of revenge, de Montfort re-captured Newport, burnt its small wooden bridge, seized all of its livestock and destroyed its crops. He left behind fire and starvation in the lands of his old friend Gilbert de Clare, but revenge is sweet. In the battle of Evesham that followed (1265) de Montfort was killed. His body was cut up and different parts sent to the Lords who had accomplished the most. We don’t know who got the testicles, but his head was sent to Roger de Mortimer who gave it as a gift to his wife, Maud. She held a great feast that very night to celebrate and. De Montfort's head was raised in the Great Hall, still attached to the point of the lance.













Meanwhile, Newport, too, got something from de Montfort’s defeat. It may have lost it’s bridge and suffered hardship and starvation, but St. Woolos got its first little stumpy tower from a grateful king.

Build on high ground

If the story of Gwynlliw and the little church he built on Stow hill is true then St. Woolos is one of the oldest churches in Britain. The original wooden building was burnt and rebuilt many times after Irish, Saxon and even Welsh attacks. In 1402 for example Owain Glyndwr completely destroyed it. This was bloody inconvenient.

Newport was still largely a tidal swamp, the sea coming right up to Stow hill during high tides. It was then the church acted as a lighthouse, aiding ships at night making their way through the treacherous waters near the Wentloog levels.















Other than a small area between Baneswell and Mill Street, which was farmed by Welsh and Saxon peasants, the entire area was either forest or swamp. The only means of travel was via the Ridge ways, which Celts, Romans, and later Normans used. This high route saved a traveller from enormous tidal surges as well as from the inconvenience of wading through marsh.

I used to live in Malpas, just on the edge of Newport. Many the nights we’d spend in the Three Horse-shoes earnestly discussing the origin of the name…err…not really. But names have meaning. It’s just nice when there’s agreement, and when a pub sells nice beer.

Some say Malpas got its name from the Roman words Malus Passus – loosely translated as ‘bloody hell that was hard’; probably an understatement. Malpas then was a very dangerous marsh.

"The marshes within the confines of the Crindau Pill were nothing better than a swamp and formed almost an island near the mill; the marshes from Town Pill to Pillqwenlly were a water-soaked and swampy fen, a veritable quagmire; the Town Pill ran up to the present day Bryngwyn Road, making Stow Hill a peninsula; and the sea came up nearly to Bassaleg Church. The land within the embankments of the Caldicot and Wentloog levels extending from Goldcliff to Cardiff and the land whereon stands almost the whole of Newport is reclaimed."
An extract from Historic Newport by James Matthews 1910. Describing Newport as it was in the C18th. What was like in the Middle-Ages, and what might it revert to as sea levels rise?





But away from these flights of fancy and back to the prosaic.

Archbishop Cox, writing in 1797, believed that Malpas got its name from the Welsh, Malp Aes meaning 'a plain within hills'. What the rest of the world call a swamp, the Welsh call a plain. Tough little buggers. Time for another pint.
(Marsh pictures by courtesy of Andy Southwales)

Beware 'the dreams of snoring monks'

A nineteenth century lithograph. As a child I loved pictures like these, would spend hours staring at what I couldn't see.

















Confession and the fair graces of repentance fell into disesteem, holiness and chastity utterly sickened away, sin stalked in the streets with open and undaunted front, and facing the law with haughty eye, daily triumphed, exulting in her abominable success.

No, not Newport on a Saturday night

But let’s not interrupt the man. It gets better:

Wherefore, the heavens did abominate the land, and, fighting against sinners, the sun and the moon stood still in their abode, and spurning the earth with the greatest noise and fury, caused all nations to be amazed at their numerous portents. For there were thunders terrifying the earth, lightnings and thunderbolts most frequent, deluging showers without number, winds of the most astonishing violence, and whirlwinds that shook the towers of churches and levelled them with the ground. On the earth there were fountains flowing with blood, and mighty earthquakes, while the sea, overflowing its shores, wrought infinite calamities to the maritime places. There were murders and dreadful seditions; the Devil himself was seen bodily appearing in many woods…

This could be advertising the ultimate disaster movie and demands to be read in the sombre rumble of a cinema voice-over. Peter of Blois (1070 – 1117?) may have had such a voice but he’s dead, and so is the man he is writing about: William II of England, better known as William Rufus, or the Red King.

It’s a puzzle as to what the Church disliked most about William Rufus, the fact that he may have been gay, his friendship with Jews or the fact that he regarded Church property as pretty much his own. But in 1093 something dramatic happened.

The king fell ill in Gloucester.

And that illness affected the Church, Scottish history, and Newport!

Convinced he was dying, the terrified monarch was desperate to make peace with the Church. He agreed to appoint Anselm as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. The See had been vacant for four years and the king had been enjoying its revenues. Anselm wasn’t fooled. He smelled trouble if the king ever recovered, and had to be dragged to the royal sickbed to receive his staff of office.

Malcolm III of Scotland was more unfortunate. He’d come all the way to Gloucester to seek audience with the king only to be turned away. Unconvinced by the illness and enraged by the insult he attacked Northumbria where he was killed along with his son. His wife died three days later.

Newport however acquired some monks. The king was so grateful to the monks of St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester that he gave them St. Woolos Church in Newport, along with 15 hides of land (A hide was the amount of land needed to keep a free peasant farmer and his family. It varied between 60 -120 acres)

But then the king got better and boy was he mad. He felt he’d been suckered and expressed contempt for the Almighty who had treated him in this way. No way was he going to carry out promises to a God who could put him through such discomfort.
Of Anselm he said: Yesterday I hated him with great hatred, today I hate him with yet greater hatred and he can be certain that tomorrow and thereafter I shall hate him continually with ever fiercer and more bitter hatred . So he knew where he stood.

But God or the devil had the last laugh. In 1100 a monk in St Peter’s Abbey in Gloucester received a vision in the night that the king was about to suffer for the bloodshed and adulteries of which he was guilty. (not particularly graceful language to a king who had given them 15 hides of land in Newport).

Also at Gloucester, Fulchred, the visiting abbot of Shrewsbury, preached a sermon on the theme that ‘the bow of Divine anger is bent against the wicked, and the arrow swift to wound is taken from the quiver. It will strike suddenly. Let every wise man avoid the blow by mending his ways’

A warning letter was sent from the Abbot of Gloucester, which the king read just prior to the Hunt. Rufus burst out laughing, refusing to believe in what he called ‘the dreams of snoring monks’. He asked those around him whether he looked the kind of man who would take notice of the dreams of ‘little old women’ and embarked on his final hunt.

The Royal forests then enjoyed gold plated conservation laws. Eyes could be torn out and limbs mutilated for the slightest infraction of woodland law. Dogs were crippled by the amputation of three claws of the forefeet so they couldn’t chase deer.

The English, impotent against their Norman conquerors, found comfort in tales of the devil haunting these woods. The New Forest, in particular, was especially fatal. Richard, the Conqueror’s eldest son was gored to death by a stag in the New Forest. The son of Duke Robert, (Rufus’s nephew) lost his life in the same forest - smashed against a tree by an unruly horse. Knowing all this, having had the warning letter from the monks of Gloucester who had already saved him once, and having himself had a prophetic dream only the night before – what possessed the man? Stubbornness, maybe. There are all kind of theories. All we can say is that William was shot by an arrow – by accident or with malice, and that his younger brother left him there, galloping off to be crowned Henry I.

No doubt the monks of St Woolos prayed for both their souls.

Welsh beat woman. Mayhem in Newport. 918 AD

Athelflaed once came to Newport, but it wasn’t a happy experience. She was the daughter of Alfred the Great and married to the King of Mercia who was facing some problems. Lucky he had Athelflaed as his wife!

The Vikings were attacking his kingdom from the North, and the Welsh, taking advantage of this, decided to attack his southern possessions. The Welsh leader, Owain of Brecon, was soundly trounced by the Saxons, who unfortunately didn’t know when to leave well enough alone, and marched deep into South Wales.

On their way home they were ambushed in the marshlands of what is now Clarence Place. The Welsh attacked as the Saxons were crossing the ford where Newport Bridge now stands. The battle was savage but ultimately the Welsh prince, Morgan (he of Glamorgan) won, and the remaining Saxons were taken prisoner. To their surprise the Welsh discovered the Saxons had been led by a woman, Athelflaed. Chivalrous or embarrassed, the Welsh released her along with the surviving Saxons, some of whom were allowed to settle on the western bank of the Usk ford.

Athelflaed was less lucky. She died in Tamworth that same year, showing that some places are even less lucky than Newport.



Newport Bridge heading into Clarence Place










Those Saxons who stayed built a mill at the present junction of Mill St. and Shaftsbury St - which operated for the next thousand years. A little higher up, where Mill St. meets Queen’s Hill, the Saxons built their geldenhall. The area between there and today’s Civic Centre is still known as Goldtops from the time when gild or geld was names given to settlements that paid tax to a manorial lord.

The area connecting Goldtops to Mill St. is presently known as Pentonville. A thousand years ago or more it might well have been known as Pyndanvil, coming from the Saxon word Pyndan for a dam on a mill stream, and vil, meaning a small collection of houses.

Well, it took an army led by a woman and a sneaky Welsh ambush, but Newport had at last the germ of a settlement in its swamp…and it was…err…Saxon, not Welsh.





Mill Street is just to the left of the river above Queensway

A less sexy Athelflaed

A surfeit of saints

Just down the road from Monmouth is the small village of Dingestow, reputedly named after the obscure Celtic Saint, Dingat, who was the son of another celtic saint, King Brychan.

Some people breed dogs, King Brychan bred saints – twenty four sons and twenty four daughters, all of them saints. Presumably St. Augustine was sent over from Rome (in 595) to regularize the system before the celestial court began speaking Welsh.

And we are not talking about Mother Teresa here. King Brychan, overcome by lust took his first wife by force. He may have been gentler with the two that followed. When not procreating or contemplating God, Brychan pursued his enemies with a vengeance, as the King of Dyfed found out to his cost. In retaliation for a raid on his kingdom, Brychan led his men in a ferocious counter-attack, after which the dismembered limbs of the slaughtered were collected as trophies.

One can only imagine what happened when his daughter Gwladys was abducted by king Gwynllyw of Gwynllwg. He may have appreciated the alliteration, may perhaps have remembered how he acquired his own first wife. He may even have wondered how a saint should respond before launching his armies on what is now Newport.

St. Gwynllyw or, to give him his proper title, St. Gwynllyw Farfog (the bearded or possibly warrior) was in trouble. His capital, probably a small hill fort on top of Stow Hill, was about to face the full wrath of St Brychan. Fortunately King Arthur, not a saint, but High King of Britain, intervened and the two kings were reconciled, though it is reputed that Arthur himself was so struck by Gwladys, he considered taking her himself.

St. Gwynllyw was a bit of a lad. Some people on the birth of a son crack open the champagne. Gwynllyw went on a wild celebratory raid across Gwent and brought back… a cow from St. Tathyw of Caerwent.

He got more than he bargained for. St Tathyw came a calling, demanding his cow back. ‘Not unless you baptize my son a Christian,’ retorted Gwynllyw, a strange bargaining position though his wife was probably moving his lips. By this time the king was going soft, which is to be expected when you marry the daughter of a saint. It was probably a forgone conclusion that he would be converted to Christianity by his own son – St. Cadoc. And just to settle the matter, when St. Gwladys died he married her sister, St Ceingar, and would you know it, they had a son – St Cynidr of Glasbury.

The king died on the 29th of March 523 AD and was buried in the church which still bears his name, the anglicized St. Woolos on the top of Stow Hill.

Since then, saint-hood in the Newport vicinity seems to have dried up.

Pagans don't have martyrs

The Roman empire embraced Christianity in 323 AD but before then Christians had been persecuted and tortured. In 303 AD a large group of Christians were worshipping quietly in Caerleon. Roman soldiers arrested them but when they found the local prison was too small to hold them they decided to kill them instead. The terrified Christians were chased halfway to Newport all the time being hacked to pieces and drenching the road with their blood. Two of these Christians were St. Julius and St. Aaron, early victims of inadequate prisons.
Clearly an excitable bunch, the Silurians, and they haven’t changed much. Mind you the church got its own back a few decades later when Britain enjoyed ‘enforced’ Christianity under later emperors. Trouble is pagans don’t have martyrs.

But getting back to Newport.

Gwynllliw was both king and pirate. He kept a fast ship in narrow pill near the mouth of the River Usk. With his gang of cut-throats he would attack any defenceless ship that sailed too close. This "Pill of Gwynlliw " eventually became known as Pillgwenlly. It's believed Gwynlliw lived on the top of Stow hill. From there he could see from a distance rich cargo ships sailing towards the Usk. He would then race down what is now Bellevue lane, across the marshy Mendalgief to his pirate ship in Pill.






















He was married to a saint and surrounded by marsh






















Which ever way he looked.

























Enough to make you crazy.



One day he saw an angel a little like this one. (Then again may be not)























Who told him to walk to the top of a nearby hill where he would find a white ox with a black spot between its horns. There he was to build a church and live a holy life.

Maybe he wasn't crazy. Maybe angels like a laugh

For lo and behold he found that white ox with a black spot between its horns
and built a church on the spot.













The next post may well be titled a Mafia of Saints, or perhaps, less controversially, a surfeit of saints.
All the marsh photos are by courtesy of Andy Southwales.

Nobody wanted to live in Newport

I once stood in a garden of a modern house in St Brides. It was part of a small housing estate built upon what were once 'wetlands'. A heavy lorry passed and the ground quivered. It was like standing on blancmange, grass covered jelly. It set me thinking about how Newport 'began'.

As early as 6000 BC Mesolithic tribes hunted throughout the marsh, but permanent settlements were made on higher ground. The hill fort on the Gaer for example once overlooked dense forest and a salmon rich River Ebbw. Now it sniffs over a housing estate, a motorway, and a small polluted trickle. But in the marsh itself there was no settlement. The future Newport was a grim, diseased-ridden swamp in a dangerous and whimsical flood plain.











The Silurians ruled an area that stretched from West Glamorgan to Gwent. Other than the hill fort of Gaer overlooking the swamp, they avoided ‘Newport’, their major settlement in the area being Lodge Hill in Caerleon. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth it was founded in 406BC by a Silurian king called Belinus.(see Catherine Fisher)

Then the Romans came. They’d drained the Pontine Marshes but clearly didn’t think ‘Newport’ worth the effort, settling in Caerleon instead. After 25 years of hard fighting the Silurians were subjugated, their hill fort replaced by a huge military base, one of the largest in Britain. The only apparent value of what is now Newport was the river that ran through it - the Usk - which carried trade inland.















For a short but vivid history of Newport go here

Many thanks go to Andy South Wales for his photos of the Wetlands. He has a superb collection and his contact is atomicandy@atomicandy.f9.co.uk

What emerged from the marsh

The Transporter Bridge, one of only two in Britain. It's a prominent landmark in 'Lucy Silver'









It is behind and around The King's Head that 'Mr Nousel's Mirror' is set. It also figures in 'Lucy Silver'. Perhaps more important for many is that Van Morrison is a sleeping partner in the hotel, and has often performed there without fuss or ceremony. Mind you, so has Oasis.


























Newport Castle, built by the Normans, turned into brewery by the Victorians. Inhabited now by goths.

















Newport is a dark and magical place. I often say it, sometimes including the word ‘seedy’. These few pictures sum it up. I’ll leave you to decide which you’d label, dark, magical and seedy. What needs to be remembered however is that all of this was once marsh, and to marsh it may one day return.

The next posting will deal with aspects of Newport's history, along with some superb photos from Andy of South Wales.