Town in Isle of Wight, England
Newport
The Isle of Wight's capital is a small market town where a king bargained for his life, a princess is buried and rock fans have camped in thousands.
Key information
- County
- Isle of Wight
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 25,000, 2011 Census
- Known for
- Island capital, Carisbrooke Castle, the Treaty of Newport (1648), the Isle of Wight Festival
- What locals are called
- Islanders call themselves Caulkheads; mainlanders are 'overners'
- Famous people
- Charles I (as a prisoner nearby), Princess Elizabeth, Queen Victoria (as a memorial-giver)
- Football clubs
- Newport (IOW) FC
About Newport
The capital that sits where the river runs out
Newport is the Isle of Wight's capital, right in the middle of the island, and it exists because of a river. The Medina flows north to the Solent, and Newport grew up at the highest point boats could reach. Its name simply means 'new town'. It was laid out in the late twelfth century under the island's lord, Richard de Redvers, as a planned market town, and the grid of streets still shows it. Goods came up the river to the Quay, and farmers from all over the island came in to trade. The Roman story is older still. Newport Roman Villa, found in 1926, shows that someone with money and a taste for bathing was living by the Medina well over a thousand years before the town got its charter.
The king who came for a refuge and found a cell
In November 1647 Charles I escaped from Hampton Court and fled to the Isle of Wight, hoping the governor would shelter him. Instead he was kept at Carisbrooke Castle, just outside Newport, a prisoner on an island. The following autumn, Newport hosted one of the great what-ifs of English history. Parliament's commissioners and the king negotiated for weeks in what became known as the Treaty of Newport in 1648. No deal was reached. Charles was taken to London and executed in January 1649. The Old Grammar School, where the talks took place, still stands in the town.
A princess in the Minster
Charles's daughter Princess Elizabeth was held at Carisbrooke too, after her father's death. She died there in 1650, aged 14, and was buried in Newport's church, now the Minster of St Thomas. Her grave lay unmarked for generations. In 1856 Queen Victoria, who had made nearby Osborne her island home, paid for a marble memorial showing the young princess resting her head on a Bible. It is still one of the town's most touching sights.
Donkeys, a castle and a Nash Guildhall
Carisbrooke Castle, on a hill above Newport, is famed for its donkeys. They walk a great wooden wheel to draw water from the castle's deep well, a job that the animals have done for centuries. Back in town, the Guildhall was designed by John Nash in 1816, the same architect who laid out Regent Street in London. It now houses the Museum of Island History. The Quay Arts Centre, on the Medina waterfront, shows how the old working quayside has found a new role.
Rock festival country
Newport's best-known modern moment is musical. The Isle of Wight Festival of 1970, with Jimi Hendrix, drew a huge crowd to the island. It was revived in 2002 and has been held at Seaclose Park, beside the Medina in Newport, ever since. Islanders have a vocabulary for visitors. Mainlanders are 'overners', while native islanders are known as Caulkheads, a nod to the shipwrights who caulked wooden hulls. On the football pitch, Newport (IOW) FC, known as The Port, carry the town's name across the island and over the Solent.