Newport, Wales

“ To be seventeen, to be conscious of great powers, all the wide world and the wide future opening, and a good little pony as companion. Has life anything better to offer than that?
In the 'South Wales' Sketch-Book of 1795, among the 'Order'd Drawings,' a list of which he has inscribed on one of the pages, is 'Newport Castle—Mr. Kershaw.' No doubt this is the 'Newport' now in the Salting Collection at the British Museum, one of the most accomplished of his early drawings, pleasant in colour and bold in mass. ”

“ I reached Newport at about half-past four, and put up at a large and handsome inn called the King’s Head. During dinner the waiter, unasked, related to me his history. He was a short thick fellow of about forty, with a very disturbed and frightened expression of countenance. He said that he was a native of Brummagen, and had lived very happily at an inn there as waiter, but at length had allowed himself to be spirited away to an establishment high up in Wales amidst the scenery. ”

“ To avoid the mines we must aim very low; at Cardiff or Caerphilly. And if we are approaching the Border from Monmouth or Hereford, or the Midlands, we shall probably, just before we reach the spreading outskirts of Newport, pass through a village with a great name. A dull, sleepy-looking village it is, standing in a commonplace landscape beside a very dirty stream, a place entirely without superficial attractions. But it is a name to conjure with. Caerleon-upon-Usk, the City of Legions! ”

“ In various parts of the country the snow lay knee deep on the ground. When we could not reach a town we were obliged to put up with the inconveniences of staying at some farm house for the night. It took us fifteen days to reach Newport. We went from there to Bristol in fishing smacks. We went to the recruiting depot and remained there for about three days. We were paid up all our back 19 pay and marching pay through Wales, and two pence per mile to the place of attestment on joining the British army. I was attested at Hythe, in Kent—186 miles from Bristol. ”

“ Alexander archdeacon of Bangor [50b] acting as interpreter to the Welsh. It is remarkable that many of the most notorious murderers, thieves, and robbers of the neighbourhood were here converted, to the astonishment of the spectators. Passing from thence through Caerleon and leaving far on our left hand the castle of Monmouth, and the noble forest of Dean, situated on the other side of the Wye and on this side the Severn, and which amply supplies Gloucester with iron and venison, we spent the night at Newport, having crossed the river Usk three times. ”

“ In Monmouthshire he acquired coal-mines, and became a large landed proprietor in Wales. While living in the plainest manner, he bestowed large sums in charities. At Court-y-bella, near Newport, he built and maintained schools for the education of the colliers. To him was mainly owing the success of Brecon College. He was well known as an earnest writer on Welsh education, and a champion of the Welsh church, and his volume on Wales, defending the principality from attacks made on it, is a standard work. ”

“ It was anciently a borough by prescription, Many relics of antiquity found. and of some note in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when it became the property of the Beauchamps, and afterwards of the Grevilles. The church is a fine gothic structure; the market is well supplied with corn; and the manufacture of needles is very extensive. Here is a Free School, founded by Walter Newport, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and various alms-houses and small charities, originating in different benefactors. Traces of the site of Traces of an abbey founded by King Stephen. ”

“ According to the census of 1901 the population per square mile of Glamorgan is 758, Monmouth 427, Carmarthen 141, Brecon 73, Radnor 49, Cardigan 88, Montgomery 68, Merioneth 74, Denbigh 197, Carnarvon 217, Flint 319, Pembroke 143, Anglesey 183.
The rate of increase per cent. between 1891 and 1901 are—Wales 13.3; England 12.1; Scotland 11.1; Ireland—5.2.
[5] In 1801 the population of Cardiff was 1870, and coal was brought down from Merthyr on donkeys. In 1901 the three ports of Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea exported nearly as much coal as all the great English and Scotch ports put together. ”

“ Tradition tells that the pond or lake was situated where the railway station is now, but of it and of that castle no traces have survived. The fortunes of Newport fell, and those of Saffron Walden began to rise, when the Empress Maud, somewhere about 1142, authorised Geoffrey de Magnaville to transfer the market to Walden, and although, some sixty years later, in 1203, King John granted Newport the right to hold an annual 82fair, this stricken town never recovered from the blow inflicted by the loss of its market privileges. ”

“ A car may be taken by a third-class road for the greater part of the distance, but a local guide is necessary.
NEWPORT
Newport is a small fishing town, and also a seaport, upon the estuary of the Nevern. It is a quiet watering-place, the sea-bathing being very good, while the surrounding country is of enticing interest.
The Castle was built in 1215, and used by the lords of Cemmaes for their courts. It was destroyed by Llewelyn, but restored recently by a descendant of the first baron, but in such strong contrast to the original Norman architecture that it is very disappointing externally. ”

“ The ruins of Newport Castle stand on the western bank of the river. In the suburbs is Caerleon, where the Romans long had the garrison-post of the second Augustan legion. The museum here is filled with Roman remains, and the amphitheatre, called "King Arthur's Round Table," is alongside. Proceeding westward about twelve miles along the shore of the Severn estuary, we come to Penarth Roads in Glamorganshire, sheltered under a bold headland at the mouths of the Ely and the Taff, and the flourishing Welsh seaport of Cardiff on the banks of the latter stream. ”

“ Baptists; for, under the mild fostering of Roger Williams, Newport has become a city of refuge to religious malcontents of every persuasion. All the population, however, is not of like sobriety. A “rage of finery” distinguishes the aristocracy of the island, and silk-stockinged gentlemen, with scarlet coats and swords, silver-buckled shoes and lace ruffles, may be seen in abundance, exchanging stately greetings with ladies in brocades and hoops, as they pass to and fro between the decorous gambrel-roofed houses or lift the brazen knockers of the street-doors. ”

“ Thirty-five years have passed since the scenes we have attempted to describe in this story were enacted, and during that time some great changes have taken place in Newport. From a thriving village it has grown into a city of respectable size, and boasts of a mayor and councilmen. Of the boys of our acquaintance some have passed away and been forgotten, others have grown to manhood, and now occupy the positions in business and society once held by their fathers, and another generation of youth has sprung up to take the places of our heroes of thirty-five years ago. ”

“ But shuddering refinement and bland recognition alike withdraw into themselves as far as broad lawns and lofty terraces permit them to retire, leaving to the owner of Fisherman's Rights the enjoyment of ocher and umber rocks and sea and sky and grain-fields yellowing on far headlands.
It gave me the nearest thing to glee I ever felt in Newport. It was bracing and open and free. It suggested comparisons with scrambles along Nova-Scotian shores or tramps on the moors in Scotland. I often hated the fine weather ”

“ Newport is more charming even than you remember it; like everything else over here, it has improved. It is very exquisite today; it is, indeed, I think, in all the world, the only exquisite watering-place, for I detest the whole genus. The crowd has left it now, which makes it all the better, though plenty of talkers remain in these large, light, luxurious houses, which are planted with a kind of Dutch definiteness all over the green carpet of the cliff. ”

“ There is nothing grand, not even anything natural in Newport, but it is very pretty for all that. For an artificial place, destined to house the most artificial people in the world during three months of the year, it is as pleasing as it can be in a light-comedy-scenery style. ”

“ Were they not all here in the wilderness together, with the savages hovering about them like the Philistines about the Jews of old? How should the English live, unless among themselves they lived in amity? So for the moment factions were reconciled, and all went to church to partake of the Holy Communion.
Newport sailed, having in the holds of his ships sassafras and valuable woods but no gold to meet the London Council's hopes, nor any certain news of the South Sea. In due time he reached England, and in due time he turned and came again to Virginia. ”

“ There is, I think, a far more intimate fondness between Newport and its frequenters than that which in most American watering-places consecrates the somewhat mechanical relation between the visitors and the visited. This relation here is for the most part slightly sentimental. I am very far from professing a cynical contempt for the gaieties and vanities of Newport life: they are, as a spectacle, extremely amusing; they are full of a certain warmth of social colour which charms alike the eye and the fancy; they are worth observing, if only to conclude against them ”

“ So many others dispute their precedence, or at least attract attention and patronage away from them, that none of them enjoys anything approaching a monopoly nor concentrates so much of the national wealth and fashion as to make it imposing like Brighton, or finished and attractive like Wiesbaden. Newport, perhaps, is as charming a resort, and as magnificently built up, according to the number of its summer population, as any in the world ”

“ After spending a couple of months in the capital of the British Empire, we set forth for Wales, where Lord Newborough’s largest estates and his finest mansion, called Glynllifon, were situated. Glynllifon is about six miles from Carnarvon in North Wales, and in that town we had the most magnificent reception; the horses were taken out of the carriage, and the young men dragged us in their place. We were escorted home by six hundred men, all people or friends of milord’s. ”

“ But of all such summer haunts, Newport is supposed to be in many ways the most captivating. In the first place it is certainly the most fashionable, and in the next place it is said to be the most beautiful. ”

“ Newport does not lay itself out much for visitors, holding itself with dignity as the capital—a place for a resident rather than the floating population which so enriches the coast towns in the season. ”

“ NEWPORT. RHODE ISLAND.
The appearance of Newport is much less imposing, as approached by land, than when viewed from the noble harbour over which it looks. It consists of one long line of close-built, narrow streets running parallel with the water about the base of the steep hill, with many others climbing up its side. It is indifferently paved, and has a very light soil; so that upon the least land-breeze the lower town is filled with the dust, which is blown about in clouds. ”

“ All the world has heard of Newport in Rhode Island as being the Brighton, and Tenby, and Scarborough of New England. And the glory of Newport is by no means confined to New England, but is shared by New York and Washington, and in ordinary years by the extreme South. It is the habit of Americans to go to some watering place every summer,—that is, to some place either of sea water or of inland waters. This is done much in England; more in Ireland than in England; but, I think, more in the States than even in Ireland. ”

“ He occasionally went by Epping, but chiefly through Waltham Cross and Hoddesdon, and thence by an obscure route past the Rye House, Hunsdon Street, Widford, Much Hadham, Hadham Ford, Patmore Heath, Stocking Pelham, Berden, Rickling Church End, and into Newport by a lane still known locally as “London Lane.” A house at Newport now known as “Nell Gwynne’s House,” and once the “Horns” inn, was at that time a halting-place often used by Nell, the Duke of York, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Earl of Rochester on their way to or from Newmarket races. ”

“ But Newport is the great school for that instruction, and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open air. ”

“ It was my last night on sea-girt Nantucket. I do not deny that I left it with reluctance.
[Pg 356]
NEWPORT, FROM FORT ADAMS. CHAPTER XXII. NEWPORT OF AQUIDNECK.
"This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses."—Macbeth.
Newport is an equivoque. It is old, and yet not; grave, though gay; opulent and poor; splendid and mean; populous or deserted. As the only place in New England where those who flee from one city are content to inhabit another, it is anomalous. ”

“ The White Mountains have always retained their clientele composed for the most part of people to whom the seclusion and pure air ministered rather to the carrying on of their studious pursuits than to the abandonment of them. Newport came to have a formidable rival in Bar Harbour. ”

“ The principal public buildings are the spacious Victoria Hall, the Albert Hall, the town-hall, county council offices, market-house, custom-house, and museum and art gallery. Newport owes a rapid increase in importance to its situation on a deep and spacious tidal river, which renders it a convenient outlet for the trade of a rich mineral district. It has extensive docks and wharves, to which large steamers have access at all tides. Three docks, the Alexandra, South and Old Docks, had together a water area of about 60 acres, besides the Alexandra graving dock and dry docks. ”