Newport Castle: the build repair and decline of city landmark

But that was once the case, and here we look at the developments within the castle structure – from its building, through to where the stones used were moved to, and how it got to the state it’s in today.

Newport’s first castle was atop Stow Hill. The first mention of the present castle was as “Castell Newydd ar Uysc” when in 1172, King Henry II summoned Iowerth ap Owain to meet him there. The castle was a target of the Welsh uprising shortly after 1183 and the following year £6.13 was spent on routine maintenance, improving sea defences and bridges and paying wages of those staffed there.

According to Jeremy Knight’s book Newport Castle, Picot, a clerk to the earl of Gloucester, took claim to the neighbouring St Gwynllyw’s church in 1156 on behalf of the monarchy who were controlling the castle. The bishop of Llandaff decided in the favour of the earl.

Repairs were made in 1207 and 1208, but it is not known what these were. Between 1321 and 1326, 300 oaks were needed to repair damage done to the castle in the siege of 1321 when the castle was taken by the earl of Hereford.

It is believed that at some point between 1327 and 1386 the castle was moved to the location we know of today.

What do we know of the castle when it was first built in the present location?

Not too much is known about the exact date it was built, but it is believed to have not been finished. It is also said that much of the original foundations have not survived the test of time.

We do know that the north and south towers had chamfered fronts and spur buttresses and despite the windows of the hall being restored, it could be dated to the 14th century. The masonry used at the time is ‘Old Red’ Devonian sandstone with contrasting Dundry stone and Lias limestone.

There are early plans of the castle which showed “the architectural and military paradox of the imposing river frontage, with its hall block, water gate and flanking towers contrasted with the weak defences of the more vulnerable landward side, protected, even when complete, only by a simple stone wall and a ditch.”

In 1377 the castle’s steward, Earl Hugh of Stafford, founded a house of Augustinian friars in the location of the present-day bus station. He is also believed to have walled the town, with a west gate on the west side in the vicinity of the current Westgate Hotel - which was demolished at the end of the 1700s. It was also of a similar architecture to the castle water gate.

Some major repairs

A number of emergency building works took place to make the castle stronger during the Glyndwr uprising, but in 1403 the then-town of Newport was badly hit and was said to be "worth nothing because of the devastation".

A number of works were carried out from April 3, 1405, to September 29 the same year, with Sir Gilbert Denys being in charge of the work.

The repairs in the first week were carried out by 36 masons, 24 carpenters and eight sawyers. A further 48 labourers assisted them and worked on clearing the castle ditch of bushes. Thirty of the workers carried out three days of labour over the following week of Easter.

After Easter, 22 masons and six carpenters worked on the repairs. There were also people working on a ‘garret or projecting wooden structure’ on the rear of the gatehouse.

MORE NEWS:

• Newport Castle - the story of who owned it and controlled the land 
• HMS Glenart Castle: The ship which was sunk just after leaving Newport

On May 8, 73 labourers were tasked with cleaning the ditch – increased from 30 – after rumours of the rebel forces reached the Captain, but a few days later, the numbers had returned to their normal levels after news of an attack on Usk Castle. By the end of May, just 13 masons and a boy were left working on the castle.

Work on a ‘great tower’ was in preparation in mid-June, with carpenters preparing timber. There are accounts of large amounts of lime – around 452 crannocks - being bought for the mortar and other materials such as nails and timber.

Some of the timber was thought to be for use in centreing arches. Cords were bought for crossbows which suggested that there would be artillery mounted on the walls.

The duke of Buckingham’s restoration

The first duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, came of age in 1424 and inherited the castle, which had been in royal control following his father’s death in 1386. He set out to work on the castle to turn it into a residence fit for a nobleman of his rank.

Some of the surviving Exchequer Rolls show the extent of the work in relation to the finances spent. In 1435 work was being carried out on the south tower next to the bridge. It is thought that the work on the tower had begun in 1427. Richard More was the master mason and had bought four cartloads of freestone from the Dundry Hill quarry in Bristol, alongside his assistant Geoffrey and fellow mason Nicholas Rufford with help from four Welsh labourers.

Those labourers also quarried rougher stone for the rubble work of the walls from Lliswerry quarries. In 1447, the woodwork in the castle chambers was under repair and further repairs to the castle buildings and long stable outside.

A new withdrawing room cost £66-12-0 ½ and was located next to chapel tower. Used in the build were 24 cartloads of freestone, 18 boatloads of Lyas and walstone, along with 18,000 Cornish slates and 24 pottery ridge tiles used for the roof, and 100 small oaks used for the woodwork in the withdrawing room and elsewhere in the castle.

The north wall was raised by three-feet and is believed to have been comprised of a corbelled and battlemented parapet like the one on the riverward façade – some of which is still visible today.

In 1452, repairs were made on the long stable outside the castle gate and the palings of the castle ditch, with maintenance work on the woodwork. The main building works were completed by this point on the castle itself.

1457 saw some ‘small’ repairs being made to the castle, where holes in the roofs of two towers and glass bought for the window in the tower near the north gate. Carpenters were preparing ‘benches, trestles, beds and tables against the coming of the lord hither.’

The decline

In 1522, a survey of Newport and the castle was carried out by the Crown after the castle was taken back following the death of the third duke of Buckingham. The survey – according to Mr Knight’s Newport Castle book – praised Newport as a town and said of the castle: “Upon the haven was a castle – with iii towres adioynnyng iuste to the water, the middelleste towre having a vawte or entre to receive into the said Castell a good vessell.” This seems to suggest the water gate.

The survey says that inside the castle was a ‘faire hall’, lodgings in the rooms next to the river and many ‘houses of office’. It said the roofs and floors were decayed but there was plenty of stone stored. The exchequer chamber sat over the castle gate and the prison underneath.

More restorative works seem to have taken place in the 1600s as a datestone of 1632 was found in the wall.

Reverend John Burgh had removed 300 tonnes of cinder from the castle garden around 1746, and by around 1749 when the castle and surrounding land was the subject of legal dispute, the castle was in a ruinous state and Colonel Morgan, who held the lease, began removing the stone to make a quay on the riverside.

The western ditch of the castle was used for lining the Monmouthshire canal in 1792, with most of the remaining ditch being filled with spoil.

In the early 1800s, the bailey was used as a tanyard, and by 1820 the remaining buildings had been turned into a brewery and the bailey walls were demolished and in 1858, with only around 80 feet of the north wall still standing. In 1899 the brewery was moved from the castle, but it was kept as a bottling store until 1905.

In the 1880s, what remained of the castle was rectangular glazed windows, a blocked water gate arch of the central tower, the main buildings from the brewery behind the north tower and high slated roofs between the central and south towers. A wooden jetty also survived.

The building of the railway bridge over the River Usk directly to the north of the castle also affected the remaining sections of the castle.

William Townshend, a known Chartist, led concern for the remains of the castle and its preservation, suggesting in a letter printed in the Monmouthshire Merlin in 1845 that someone should be appointed to look after any archaeological discoveries found.

The last century

A common consensus among the people of Newport is that over the last few decades, the castle ruins have been neglected, particularly when compared to other castles across South Wales.

In 1930, the ruins were placed into the care of the Office of Works, and after 1935 a programme of conservation was started - only to be interrupted by the outbreak of World War Two.

After the war, the conservation was completed and a small park was created at the front of the remains before it was removed in 1970 for the widening of the road. The stump of masonry that was left from the north curtain wall was also removed.

What remains of the castle today is the central tower or water gate flanked by two lengths of the wall overlooking the river. At the ends of the walls are towers.

• You can find out more about Newport Castle in Jeremy Knight’s book Newport Castle.