Newtown, Powys

The Birthplace of one of the 19th Century's Greatest Social Reformers

Newtown? Where and Why

Wales

Powys

Lynne chose Newtown as the destination for her birthday sojourn. It was not an obvious choice, but there was a reason.

During the years our daughter spent at Aberystwyth University we travelled regularly from North Staffs to the Welsh coast. Crossing the border near Welshpool we either took a northerly route through Mallwyd and Machynlleth or tacked south through Newtown and Llangurig. Either way the 100-mile journey took around 3 hours, the roads are narrow and there was a good chance of finding yourself in a queue behind a tractor winding its noisy way through the quiet hills of Mid-Wales while flicking gobbets of mud and cow dung at is unwilling followers.

Mid-Wales
Shrewsbury is 35 miles from home, Newtown is another 35 miles southwest

‘I have driven through Newtown many times, and never stopped there,’ she said, ‘so I would like to visit for my birthday.’ ‘There might be a reason no one stops,’ I thought, making a token show of resistance before meekly acquiescing.

Wales

Newtown is the largest town in Powys, Wales largest county. That almost makes it sound important, but although Powys covers a remarkable 25% of the Welsh landmass, it has only 3% of the population. Newton has some 11,000 citizens, twice as many as Llandrindod Wells, the administrative centre, and ten times more than Montgomery, the other Powys town I have ‘honoured’ with a blog post.

Its name does the town no favours and is hardly unique; Wikipedia lists another 80 Newtowns (and almost as many Newtons) across the Anglosphere. In England it prompts memories, for those old enough, of the ‘challenging’ Newtown in ‘Z Cars’ or comparison with real new towns, like Telford or Milton Keynes with a reputation for many thousands of identikit 1970s dwellings and concrete brutalist centres. Actually, I like Milton Keynes, I find it well planned and user friendly, but it does have an (unwarranted) reputation

Newtown, Powys, is not like that. It may have undergone relatively recent expansion, but it is a surprisingly old new town.

Castell Dolforwyn and the Origins of Y Drenewydd (The New Town)

The A483 follows the Severn Valley southwest from Welshpool. 5 miles before Newtown a sign to Dolforwyn Castle points to a narrow side road climbing diagonally across the hillside almost parallel to the main road below. After a mile, opposite a small parking area, a footpath strikes up the hillside towards the castle.

The path up to Dolforwyn Castle
There is nothing Lynne enjoys more than a steady climb

Working its way round the end of the hill, it turns towards the summit and suddenly you are surrounded by old stonework. This area, just outside the gate, was once occupied by the village that grew up to service the castle

Dolforwyn Castle entrance

To assert his claim to be the most important among the Welsh rulers/warlords/princes, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Gwynedd needed a presence in the strategically important Severn Valley. His successful invasion of 1257 and subsequent consolidation led to the Treaty of Montgomery (September 1267) where Henry III recognised him as the Prince of Wales. To confirm his control Llywelyn constructed a castle at Dolforwyn between 1273 and 1277.

The side of Dolforwyn Castle overlooking the Severn Valley is the remains of Llywelyn's stone work

Edward I

Unfortunately for him Henry III had died in 1272 and his son and successor Edward I was less tolerant of upstart princelings on his borders, particularly those who built a castle without his permission. Construction had hardly finished when Roger Mortimer and Henry de Lacy arrived from Montgomery with an army and laid siege.

After removing the villagers, they sat down and waited until the defenders ran out of water and the siege ended.

Roger Mortimer largely rebuilt the castle, remembering to include a well in case of another siege. Dolforwyn remained in Mortimer hands for three generations before it was abandoned. By 1398 it was described as "ruinous and worth nothing." It is now in the safe hands of Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service.

The side of the castle most rebuilt by Mortimer - including the well

Edward I had his faults, but he ensured the lands he grabbed were well governed. Driving the native Welsh princes from the Severn Valley pacified the borders and the castle’s displaced villagers felt confident enough to move down to the flatter land beside the river. Three miles from Dolforwyn they built Y Drenewydd (The New Town) or simple Newtown beside the River Severn.

Robert Owen

The Statue

Walking from the large car park beside the Severn towards the bustling town centre we passed a statue of Robert Owen, Newtown's favourite son. Designed by Gilbert Bayes and erected in 1956 this rather sentimental statue of the Newtown-born industrialist and social reformer, stands in the tiny Robert Owen Memorial Garden.

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

Birthplace and Museum

Central Newtown has sufficient self-important buildings to ensure the town is not mistaken for an over-grown village. The HSBC building is a typical HSBC design, cut down to fit the corner plot, once occupied by Robert Owen’s birthplace.

HSBC, Newtown, on the site of Robert Owen's birthplace

The Cross Building on the junction of Broad and High Streets, was built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was financed by Sarah Brisco of the Pryce family (of whom more later) who donated the clock to the people of Newtown in 1900. [Update: Barclays Bank were tenants from the start. They closed this branch just weeks after our visit].

The Cross Building, Newtown

Across Severn Street is Sarah Brisco House and the Robert Owen Memorial Museum.

Robert Owen Memorial Museum, Newtown

Born in 1771, Robert Owen had little formal education but was a voracious reader. Leaving school aged ten, he was apprenticed to a Lincolnshire draper and by the age of 23 was a partner in a Manchester mill.

Robert Owen's birthplace may have gone, but the museum preserves the doorknocker!

In the early 1790s he started thinking more about how workers were treated, developing progressive moral views.

Robert Owen

In the late 1790s he met David Dale, a Scottish entrepreneur and philanthropist, and the builder of the New Lanark mills in southern Scotland. We visited New Lanark, now a UNESCO World Heritage site) in 2021 (click here.) In 1799 he married Dale’s daughter and in 1800 took over New Lanark. Dale had been considered a model employer, but Owen went much further, putting limits on the hours and ages of child workers and ensuring they received an education. He introduced a standard eight-hour day and lobbied to have his reforms put into law. Prime Minister Robert Peel sympathised, but his ideas were too radical for the time.

Robert Owen and his reforms

Despite (or because of) the way he treated his workers he made a great deal of money. He sold New Lanark in 1825 and although his subsequent projects met with less success, his contributions to the founding of the cooperative movement and to trade unionism were of great importance. He was a visionary and a man ahead of his time.

St Mary’s Church, Robert Owen’s Grave and More

Although he lived most of his life in Scotland and England, Owen returned to Newtown at the end of his life and died here in November 1857. Despite declaring himself an atheist in 1817 and becoming a spiritualist in his 80s he was buried at St Mary’s Church a short walk from the museum.

Robert Owen's grave, St Mary's Church, Newtown

Nearby a plaque commemorates Thomas Powell, a chartist leader born in Newtown in 1802. Described as a ‘disciple of Robert Owen’ and ‘a fighter for political rights and equality’, he was imprisoned for his trouble in 1839-40. He died in Trinidad in 1862.

Thomas Powell's plaque, St Mary's Newtown

The Charter from which the Chartists took their name demanded six radical reforms:

1) A vote for every man aged twenty-one years and over.
2) A secret ballot.
3) No property qualification for Members of Parliament (MPs).
4) Payment of MPs enabling persons of modest means to become MPs.
5) Equal constituencies.
6) Annual Parliamentary elections.

Chartism was at its peak 1839-48 but faded away thereafter. All their outlandish demands were eventually met except No. 6 which still sounds outlandish.

St Mary’s Church served Newtown for 500 years, but being beside the river, flooding was a continual problem. Eventually, a new church was built and St Mary’s was abandoned in 1850. It is now a ruin, but has been stabilised.

St Mary's, Newtown

From St Mary's to the Textile Museum

Beside the Severn

Newtown’s textile museum was a 250m walk away. We set off from St Mary’s strolling along the bank of the Severn. The River Severn, shared between Wales and England, is Great Britain’s longest river, but at Newtown it is little more than a stream, being barely 30km (18 miles) into its 354km (220 mile) journey to the Bristol Channel.

Beside the Severn, Newtown

The Long Bridge

We crossed the river on the Long Bridge. A wooden bridge was built on this site in the 15th century and maintained by bequests in the wills of Newtown’s leading citizens. It survived the great flood of 1795 and was still in use, though somewhat rickety, in the early 19th century.

Long Bridge over the Severn, Newtown

In 1820, maintenance of roads and bridges became the responsibility of the County and the present bridge was constructed. It was barely adequate for the traffic of the mid-19th century and is even less adequate now – signs declare its feebleness in two languages. Drivers of heavy vehicles will be relieved that there is a modern bridge a short distance downstream.

Long Bridge, Newtown in 1880

The photo above was taken from the bridge looking past where I was standing. Newtown, give or take a line of parked cars and some signs, is still recognisable. The photo was borrowed from CountyTimes.co.uk and is part of the Powys Digital History Project.

A Scary Road Sign

Whether it is a 'Weak Bridge' or a 'Pont Wan', this long exiled, monolingual anglophone Welshman applauds the efforts made to keep the ancient language alive and well. Monolingual as I may be, I was brought up, mainly in England, by Welsh parents, and Lynne is Welsh, so I generally approach place names with reasonable confidence. I am unfazed by Llanelli (where Lynne was born), Ystradgynlais, Tonyrefail, or Machynlleth but the sign just over the bridge gave me pause for thought.

Scary sign, Newtown

Bilingual signage is inevitably asymmetric; all towns and villages have Welsh name (though some have been invented quite recently) but many places have never had an English name. Bettws Cedewain is no problem, ‘w’ is a vowel (sometimes) and ‘Bettws’ is pronounced ‘Bettus’ (simples!) but at first glance Llanllwchaearn appears to have six consecutive consonants followed by three consecutive vowels. By breaking it down into 3 syllables, remembering ‘w’ is a vowel, not sweating the terminal vowels - and pronouncing ‘ll’ as a voiceless lateral fricative (and we all know what one of those is) I triumphed-ish.

Newtown Textile Museum

Newtown’s Textile Museum occupies a weaving factory built in the 1830s. The lower storeys consist of three pairs of back-to-back weaver’s cottages. The upper storeys, were used for weaving, the large windows giving light to operate the hand-looms.

Newtown Textile Museum is the 4-storey red-brick building

Weavers' workshop, Manchester

There were many such factories here in the 19th century. Newtown was a weaving town, so Robert Owen’s switch from being a draper to manging mills seemed quite natural and the few surviving weaving factories in Manchester are similar in design. In Manchester and Lanark Owen was weaving cotton from the Americas, in Newtown it was locally sourced wool.

The lower floors give an idea of the basic, and rather cramped living conditions of the workers and their (often large) families…

…where women could earn money by spinning…

Weaver's cottage, Newtown Textile Musuem

…for the looms above.

Looms, Newtown Textile Musuem

There are also education facilities for guiding school parties through the whole process from sheep to cloth.

The top floor has the workshops of other forgotten occupations. There is a clog maker’s…

Clog makers, Newtown textile Museum

…and a draper’s shop, or is it a haberdasher? I looked them up. Draper: A person who sells textiles. Haberdasher: one who sells, needles, thread, buttons etc. (North American usages are different).

Drapers or Haberdashers? Newtown textile Museum

I am generally wary of textile museums. Across the world people are keen for us to watch them weaving, and even keener for us to buying something. Unfortunately, I have little interest in textiles, but they are often poor people, so we buy a gift for someone who doesn’t really want it. Newtown Textile Museum is not like that, it brings to life a period of the town’s history and is well worth a visit.

Newtown and the World of Retail

Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones

Pryce Jones was born near Newtown in 1834 and apprenticed to a local draper in 1845. He took over the business in 1856 and then started a new company under his own name, dealing in Welsh flannel. With an established national postal system and the arrival of the railway, he was able to set up a mail order business in Newtown, that not only numbered Florence Nightingale and Queen Victoria among its customers, but eventually shipped Welsh flannel across Europe and to America and Australia. In 1879 he built the Royal Welsh Warehouse which still stands next to the station. He became MP for Montgomery in 1885 and was knighted two years later as Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones. Apart from being the Jeff Bezos of Mid-Wales, in 1876 he patented the ‘Euklisia Rug’, the world’s very first sleeping-bag.

The Royal Welsh Warehouse, Newtown

Laura Ashley

Laura Ashley, whose designs are invariably described as ‘quintessentially English’ was actually Welsh. With husband Bernard Ashley she opened their first shop in Machynlleth in 1961 and built their first factory in Newtown. Then from Newtown to the world.

Dinner in Newtown on a Tuesday

Google maps suggests Newtown is replete with restaurants, but eliminating cafés, coffee shops and takeaways greatly reduces the possibilities for a drink and a sit-down dinner. On further investigation the remaining establishments were largely ‘closed: next open, Thursday 7 pm’.

One Italian restaurant was, apparently, open. After walking right across central Newtown (a short hike!) we found it too locked and unlit. Wandering around, we found several drinking-only pubs – once the norm, but no longer elsewhere – multiple takeaways but no restaurants. One pub sported a somewhat unappealing menu outside. We entered. It was large and not particularly crowded, but most unoccupied tables were piled with uncleared dirty dishes. We exited.

We hovered outside an Indian restaurant, but it appeared to lack a licence, and Lynne deserved a drink on her birthday. We popped into a Spar convenience store and purchased a bottle of Rioja, intending to pick up a takeaway and return to our B&B. Setting off on our quest, the proprietor had said we would be welcome to eat in the breakfast room and use their plates and cutlery. It had seemed an odd speech at the time, now we understood.

Fish King Souvlaki

Fish King is a chip shop, but we had seen has some positive comments about its Greek food on TripAdvisor.

Fish King the following morning with friendly proprietor toting a broom

By 7.45 the fish’n’chip rush had gone and the proprietor was happy to run us through his Greek options. We ordered a chicken souvlaki and fried chicken (the choice was chicken or chicken). Returning to the B&B felt like a defeat, it was too cold for the outside tables but he had one inside table. Sitting in splendour in the corner of a chip shop, we ate our chicken, drank our wine from borrowed mugs and provided a talking point for later customer.

Dining in Newtown's exclusive Fish King

It was wholesome, reasonably priced, and had some genuine Greek flavours. Being a chip shop, our meal came with pita bread and chips; the younger me would have eaten it all, but maturity means I  cannot manage so much carbohydrate so I left most of the chips. I had assumed the proprietor was a Greek Cypriot - there are many in the Fish and Chip trade - but he was actually Romanian and had learned to cook during a ten-year spell in Cyprus. An affable young man with a gift for languages and an entrepreneurial spirit, he deserves to do well.

In Conclusion

Despite initial misgivings there is plenty in and around Newtown to fill a day, and the people we met were all very pleasant. Do go and visit, but if you don’t fancy eating in the corner of a chip shop, go at the weekend.