1
THE MORPHOLOGY OF NEWTOWN
David Pugh
There is evidence, albeit sparce, that the uplands surrounding the upper Severn valley have
had human occupation since the Mesolithic age, up to seven thousand years ago 1. There have
been more finds of artifacts and earthworks from the Bronze and Iron Ages but none of this
suggests that there was any kind of settlement on the present site of Newtown.
The Romans, having established their camp at The Gaer, Forden, drove their road west to
Caersws where they established another encampment. In relation to modern Newtown this
road ran just north of the railway line through the Dyffryn Estate, the Lion Works, Tesco,
joining modern roadways through the Station Yard (Ffordd Croesawdy) and along the
Llanidloes Road as far as Nantoer, where it diverged to the north through the Vaynor Estate,
crossing the town boundary at the Mochdre Brook2. A substantial section of this road was the
subject of extensive archaeological investigation in 2009 during the erection of the Tesco
Store and car park on Pool Road. Again there was no evidence of a settlement at Newtown.
Following the collapse of the Roman empire and the Saxon invasion of Eastern England in
the sixth century the Celtic saints were driven west into Wales where they established their
churches and hermitages. It is thought that such a church was established where
Llanllwchaiarn Church now stands3. The original churchyard was been the type of circular
enclosure common at that time. This church became the parish church of Llanllwchaiarn,
which was much more extensive in area than it is now, taking in land on both side of the
Severn. A small daughter church of Llanllwchaiarn mentioned in the St Asaph valuation of
1253 on the site of the old St Mary’s Church may have had earlier origin4, but there is no
documentary or archeological evidence of a settlement around it5. Indeed, before Norman
times, there were very few settlements at all in Wales5.
During Norman times the Marcher lands were much fought over. For some time the upper
Severn formed a boundary with the Normans on the south bank and the Welsh to the north. In
about 1100AD a motte and bailey fortification was established, possibly by Roger de
Montgomery at what is now the Gro Tump about a mile north-east of the present town. This
may have been a strategic point as it overlooked a ford across the River Severn near
Llanllwchiarn Church.
In the thirteenth century the centre of power on the north side of the river was at Dolforwen
Castle, Abermule, which was also the market centre for the area. In 1277 the castle was
besieged and taken by Roger Mortimer of Wigmore and the lands of Cedewain were granted
to him. The castle was demolished and on 17th January 1279 Mortimer obtained a charter
from Edward I to establish a new market town.
The obvious place in the upper Severn valley to build a new market town would have
Caersws as it lies at the confluence of three valleys and has an area of broad open land
suitable for building. However Mortimer’s Cedewain did not extend that far west. Caersws
was in Arwystli. But Mortimer chose not to establish his town by the existing fortification at
the Gro but a mile or so west. The a he did this may have more to do with politics that
geography. The mediaeval rule was that markets had to be at least 6⅔ miles apart. By placing
the new town at the most westerly practicable point in Cedewain it would be less than 6⅔
from Caersws thus preventing anyone else from establishing a rival market at Caersws.
Whatever Mortimer’s reasoning was, establishing Newtown on its present site was to cause
problems with remain with us to the present day. The position he chose was in a narrow part
of the valley which meant that subsequent development would tend to be linear along the
valley bottom.
On 17th January 1279 at Windsor, Edward I signed a writ de indendo “to the tenants of
Kedwy, Kery and the castle of Dolvoren, in favour of Roger de Mortuo Mari, to whom the
2
king has granted the lands of Kedwy, Kery, and the castle aforesaid, to be held of the crown
by the service of three knights fees.”6. the king also decreed that Tuesday should be the
town’s market day, which it still is.
Mortimer built a new motte and bailey, the remains of which are in the Park. The river to
the north and east sweeps through ninety degrees so by throwing up defensive banks radiating
out from the motte to the north and east to meet the river a roughly rectangular piece of land
was enclosed, big enough to accommodate a market town. The bank to the east of the motte
was as least partly natural, a rocky ridge running parallel to the Green Brook to its south and
passing between the present High and Market Streets and along The Bank to the river. There
are the remains of a bank to the north although some doubt has been cast as to whether this is
of mediaeval origin. However the northern end of it had substantial ditch to the west until the
second half of the twentieth century, when it was filled in.
Within these boundaries a new town was laid out with its main thoroughfares forming a Tshape. A similar layout can be seen at Machynlleth. The top of Newtown’s T was formed by
High Street, and the area between Severn Street and Parkers Lane. This latter area formed a
large market place. Broad Street forms the stem of the T. At its northern end it probably led
to a ford across the river. The land either side of Broad Street was divided up into burgage
plots upon which the houses and shops were built. These plots had frontages to the street of
33 feet. Behind these ran long strips of land which formed small farms. There were lanes to
provide access to the back of these plots, the most recognisable being Back Lane. Not long
after the foundation of the town a period of relative peace occurred in the Marcher lands and
it would seem that the defensive bank to the south was no longer needed so burgage plots
were marked out on the south side of High Street extending to Market Street as their back
access.
Whilst no buildings survive on the town’s streets from these early days many early burgage
plot boundaries can be seen on large scale maps and many of the street frontages retain the
33ft width of the plots. As nothing remains of the town’s early houses one can only speculate
on how they may have been constructed. They would have been, of necessity, of local
materials. There is very little good building stone in Montgomeryshire but there has always
been a plentiful supply of timber, mostly oak. Thus it is likely the town was formed of timber
framed houses.
Access to the new town from the new town from the north-east was along a road running
close to the south bank of the river which met the east end of the market square in what is
now Severn Square, the present Pool Road, Short Bridge Street and Gas Street
From the south west the town was approached slong a road which left the present Llanidloes
Road roughly opposite where the Lidl store stands and running in a sweeping curve to enter
the town just north of the motte and continuing into High Street7.
Soon after the founding of the town the small chapel of Llanfair yng Nghedewain was
replaced by a larger church of stone. It had a massive stone tower to the west with a
rectangular building to its east containing both nave and chancel. Whilst the early settlement
had the name of Llanfair yng Nghedewain, by the fourteenth century it appeared in written
records as Newtown, also in its Welsh and Norman French forms as Y Drefnewydd and Nova
Villa. As is estimated that about half the population of the new town came from over the
border in England it may have been that the old name was too difficult for them to
pronounce8. However despite several attempts to change the town’s name to something more
“interesting”, Newtown it remains.
Originally Newtown stood within the parish of Llanllwchaiarn but, probably soon after the
establishment of the town most of that part of the parish which lay on the south side of the
river became the new parish of Newtown with St Mary’s becoming its parish church. As the
town then consisted of two parishes it was, and still is, customary to refer to it as “Newtown
3
and Llanllwchaiarn”10. A south aisle was added to the church in the 14th century and in the
early 16th century a magnificent rood screen was erected to separate the nave from the
chancel. It was in the Celtic style and is thought to have been carved by the “Newtown
school” of carvers11. The remains of the screen are now housed in the former organ loft of
Llanllwchahairn Church.
The new town stood on no main highway and had very poor communications with the
outside world. Its sole function was to provide a market town for the surrounding area and, of
course, market tolls to the Crown. As such there was no growth within the town until the end
of the eighteenth century. Indeed there is evidence that the town did not fill its mediaeval
boundaries until the early nineteenth century.
However the black death of 1349 brought change to Newtown as it did to everywhere else.
There were no longer enough labour to farm Britain’s land and large tracts of land were
granted to lords of the manor as demesne land. It is probable that the Newtown Hall Estate
was formed in this manner and Newtown Hall (demolished 1965) was built9. As well as
taking ownership of much of the farmland around the town the owners of the estate, for many
centuries the Pryce family, established a large deer park extending to the west on both sides
of the main road as far as Nantoer. the establishment of this park ensured that the town would
not extend beyond the top of High Street and the Back Lane. The enclosure of the park meant
that, by 1400, the main road into the town was moved to the south to form Park Street and the
original road was stopped up, possibly to grant privacy to the lords of the manor in Newtown
Hall.
At about this time the ford across the river was supplemented by a wooden bridge over the
river. Its south abutment was beneath what is now the Long Bridge. On the north side it met
the riverbank a few yards downstream of the present bridge. A small settlement grew up on
the north bank around the end of the bridge. It became known as Frankwell, probably from
the Norman French “franc ville”, or free town, indicating an unchartered market free of tolls.
The name also occurs in similar locations in Llanidloes and Shrewsbury.
Apart from this small settlement the only other building of note on the north bank of the
river was a few hundred yards downstream where there was a cornmill, the Oversevern, or
Beander, Mill. The date of its establishment is not known but it was reputed to be of
mediaeval origin.
Another street was added to the town plan, the present Short Bridge Street, running south
from Broad Street to the Green Brook. At first glance it may look as though the street had
been a part of an original cruciform, rather that T-shaped, plan but there is boundary and
other evidence which suggest that this was not the case and that Short Bridge Street
originated as a short cut to the town centre rather that a part of the grand plan.
In about 1570 a market hall was built by one Thomas Turner in Broad Street (then called
Bridge Street), opposite where Bear Lanes now stands. It was demolished in 1852 but from
written desciptions it appears to have been almost identical to the one that still stands in
Llanidloes.
Around the time the market hall was built infill development occurred on the old market
placewith Severn Street and Parkers Lane being left for access. This again suggests that the
market town as originally laid out was rather larger than was eventually needed. However
livestock sales still took place on Tuesdays in High Street and Back Lane. The horse market
was held in what is now Market Street and that part of Short Bridge Street that runs from the
end of Market Street to the Green Brook. An essential element of a horse market is that it has
a length of road or land where the horses can be “run” in order for potential buyers to assess
them.
During the two hundred years following the building of the Market Hall little seems to have
changed in the town although some of the buildings would have been replaced due to fire or
4
dilapidation. A number of the extant timber framed buildings in the town centre, there are
more than first meets the eye, are anecdotally said to have been constructed in the mid
seventeeth century, but whether this represents a period of prosperity for the town or just
guesswork remains to be seen.
The latter half of the eighteenth century saw the beginning of a period of accelerating
change in the town. Initially this was a consequence of the introduction of turnpike roads.
Welshpool had been connected to Oswestry in 1756 and Shrewsbury in 1758. The passing of
and Act or Parliament in 1769 permitting the setting up of the Montgomeryshire Turnpike
Trusts enabled road improvements to extend further west. However this did not lead to
Newtown being on a major trade route through Mid Wales. The main coaching route from
Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth went by way of Welshpool, Llanfair Caereinion, Mallwyd and
Machynlleth. Robert Owen noted in his autobiography that when he left Newtown for
London in 1781 he had to hitch a lift with a waggoner to get to Welshpool to travel on the
Shrewsbury coach12.
However the new roads in Montgomeryshire led to an increase in one of the counties staple
trades: woollen manufacture. The spinning and weaving of wool had been a major feature of
trade in Montgomeryshire since at least mediaeval times, but it had been a cottage, or
sometimes a farm, industry. Farm workers would spin and weave in their cottages or weave
on looms kept by the farmers to provide labour for their full time workers during the winter
(looms were more expensive than spinning wheels). The trade had been dominated by the
monopoly held by the Shrewsbury Drapers Company but in 1797 that monopoly was broken
by the establishment of a wool market in Welshpool13.
But it wasn’t just improvements in communications and the collapse of the monopoly that
spurred on the development of woollen cloth manufacture in the towns of Mid Wales. To get
from the raw fleece to the finished flannel requires a large number of processes to be gone
through. At the end of the eighteenth century several new inventions enabled the
industrialisation of several of these processes, although one such process, fulling, had been
carried out in mills since the mid 17th century. But the creation of fulling in mills did not lead
to the rise of new settlements. That the fulling mills were widely dispersed can been seen by
the incidence of the Welsh name for them, Pandy.
However the invention of the carding engine and the spinning jenny, and later the spinning
mule meant that economies of scale could be made by bringing these newly mechanised
processes together in purpose built factories.
The new technologies were brought into Montgomeryshire in about 1800 by Lancashire
millwrights. But to convert a cottage industry into a factory based enterprise requires capital,
and it is this factor that led to Newtown’s pre-eminence in the industrialisation of the Mid
Wales woollen industry. Some of the capital was provided by well-off local farmers, but
much of the money was provided by three local entrepreneurs.
The first of these developers was the Reverend George Arthur Evors, who had, in about
1804. inherited what was left of the Newtown Hall Estate. Most of the estate having been
squandered by three generations of profligate Pryces. He seems to have set about rebuilding
the estate and as a part of this process erected new buildings to accomodate the woollen
industry which he rented to manufacturers. He also converted at least part of the old
Oversevern Mill to woollen manufacture.
The second Newtown entrepreneur was William Tilsley. He was from a Montgomeryshire
family but had a successful wholesale drapers’ business in Newgate Street, near St Paul’s
Cathedral in London. But in 1792 he bought Milford Hall which stands about a mile west of
Newtown on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Severn. In 1809 he built a weir across the river
below the Hall with provided water for a carding mill a little way downstream. (The was an
5
earlier carding mill at the Dingle, but little is known of it.) Despite a bankruptcy in 1810
Tilsley went on to build more mills and factories.
The third of the town’s developers was William Pugh (generally referred to as being “of
Brynllwyarch”, Kerry). His father, also William, was a banker (or moneylender) in Newtown.
He was successful enough to be able to afford to live in a succeesion of large houses near the
town and to send his son to Rugby School and Cambridge.
Of the three entrepreneurs it was William Pugh who was the visionary and the strategic
thinker. As we shall see, the shape of presentday Newtown is very much a consequence of
Pugh’s thinking.
The town began growing very rapidly. New handloon factories and workers cottages were
built on the burgage plots at the back of the buildings on either side of Broad Street and for
the first time it outgrew its mediaeval boundaries. Between Park Street and Market Street to
the north and the Green Brook to the south lay an open area of land known as The Green or
Newtown Green. This land was subject to the Cedewain Enclosures Act of 1796 and
subsequently divided into streets and plots sold off for building14. Early property deeds
describe the enclosed land as “waste land”15, but its name suggest that it was common land
belonging to the people of Newtown.
The early houses in Ladywell Street, which ran through the Green, were timber framed
workers cottages and this seems to have been the end of timber framed building in Newtown,
and the end seems to have come quickly. All later buildings were of brick. It is possible to
speculate on two reasons for this end to a building tradition that had lasted in the area for
centuries. It was the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Admiral Rodney had been buying
Montgomeryshire oak for building Nelson’s fleet. Oak would have become too expensive as
a building material for humble workers dwellings. On the other hand the completion of the
turnpike roads made building with brick cheaper. It was not that bricks were expensive. There
were deposits of suitable clay almost everywhere, but the nearest limestome for making
mortar was at Llanymynech, about twenty miles away. The Montgomeryshire Canal, which
had reached Garthmyl from Llanymynech in1797. This and the turnpike road would have
made it possible to transport the limestone to Newtown more speedily and efficiently. For
several decades after 1800 all the town’s buildings were of locally made brick, although there
was the occasional use of substantial internal oak framing.
The construction of the early workers housing in the Green or Ladywell area was of a form
that was to be replicated across the town. They were usually built in blocks of back to back
form with each house having one small room downstairs and another small room upstairs.
Above the houses were one or two storeys of open workrooms containing the handlooms.
The town was growing quickly. In 1780 the population was about 800. By 1806 it had more
than doubled to over 1,600.
William Pugh saw the advantage of extending to Montgomeryshire Canal to Newtown, as
had originally been intended, particularly as there were also proposals to extend the canal
eastwards to join the Ellesmere Canal and thus the national network. Unfortunately Pugh was
unable to perusade the directors of the canal of the desirability of extending it to Newtown
and eventually the extension was built as a separate company and almost entirely paid for by
Pugh himself. It opened to limited traffic to the Canal Basin in Llanllwchaiarn on 1st March
181916. It was fully opened in 1821.
The canal terminus, the Canal Basin was off Lower Canal Road, and although it has been
filled in an built on there is quite a lot of evidence of its existence: workers’ cottages,
warehouses, remains of bridges etc.
William Pugh’s vision was that the Canal should be a part of a transport link from northwest England to South Wales. He could see that the canal, useful as it was, led directly into
enemy territory, the great woollen centres in Lancashire and Yorkshire, but in the other
6
direction lay the burgeoning markets in the South Wales coalfield. To link the canal, and
Newtown with this market Pugh proposed a new bridge over the Severn running from the end
of the canal basin to a point near the junction with Short Bridge Street and Pool Road. From
there a new road was to run to the “Top of the Town”, the junction of Park Street, Dolfor
Road and Llanidloes Road. The road was built in 1821, New Road, and possibly to take
advantage of the new transport node the Queen’s Head pub was also build in 1821, and the
development to the south and east of it also started.
But there was a problem. The new bridge was to be a trunk road bridge, and so would be
maintained free of toll by the County. The existing wooden Long Bridge at the north end of
High Street was not a County Bridge and so its maintenance was the responsibility of the
parishes on either side of the river, towards which they collected tolls. A smart new toll-free
bridge a few hundred yards downstream would seriously jeopardise their income. They
objected. Pugh lost the argument, but agreed to build a new bridge on the site of the existing
bridge. As this would still be a County Bridge the parishes would be relieved of all their
obligations. But it did mean that all vehicular traffic from the Canal to the town would have
to take a rather circuitous route to get there.
However Pugh pressed ahead with his improved route to South Wales. He paid for a new
turnpike road to the County boundary near the Camnant, Dolfor. The two eisting routes to
Dolfor were steep and unsuited to horse drawn traffic. Pugh’s road, surveyed by Thomas
Penson, rises nine hundred feet to the watershed on an almost constant easy gradient. As a
contour road it has many bends, but that was not an issue for horse-drawn waggons.
Penson also was the architect of the new three span bridge across the river north from
Broad Street. Developers were quick to spot the advantages this new crossing would bring to
a town that was desperate for new development land. Even before the bridge was completed,
fields belonging to the Lower Bryn Farm were bought, a new layout of streets was created
and plots offered for sale. One of the fields was above a small roadstone quarry by the old
Tregynon Turnpike (now Frankwell Street). Thus the field acquired its name, Penygloddfa,
“The top of the Quarry”. The new suburb took the field’s name. It was a time of boom for the
handloom weaving industry and back-to-back houses and weaving factories were quickly
erected.
For a few years the town boomed and the population continued to grow reaching 6,842 at
the time of the 1841 census. However by then the handloom weaving industry was in decline.
An attempt to introduce steam power the mills in 1835 had failed17 and the economic decline
led to social unrest, most notably reflected in the rise of the Chartist movement.
However in 1860 changing circumstances heralded Newtown’ second great boom. The
railway arrived in the town, linking it with the national network. The new station and goods
yard were built on higher ground a few hundred yards to the south of the town, although the
original plan had been to bring the railway from Llanidloes down New Road, across the river
to the Canal Basin. The canal was to have been filled in and its bed used for the new railway.
By coinicidence the railway arrived in Newtown just before events across the Atlantic
provided new opportunities for the woollen industry. The blockade of the Southern ports
during the American Civil war had brought the cotton industry in Lancashire to a standstill.
Fine Welsh flannel was seen as a good alternative.
Two large steam driven mills were built in the 1860s near the Canal Basin the Commercial
Mills and the Cambrian, the latter eventually being extended to become the largest woollen
mill in Wales. A third large steam mill, the Severn Valley, was built in 1875 adjoining the
Station Goods Yard, but by the time it opened the woollen industry in Newtown was once
again in decline. However it was sustained to some extent by a new development in trade that
had originated in Newtown.
7
Pryce Jones was born in Newtown in 1834 and educated at school in a room above the
Green Tavern in New Church Street and was later apprenticed to a local draper in Broad
Street. He set up his own business, also in Broad Street moving later to larger premises in the
Cross, where the Town Clock now stands. The opening of the railway enabled Pryce Jones to
develop a new idea in tackling Newtown’s distance from its markets. He is credited with the
invention of mail-order selling (although Sear-Roebuck in the USA contest this claim). Pryce
Jones’ business grew very rapidly, selling all manner of rugs, blankets and garments made
from locally woven Welsh flannel. Very quickly Pryce Jones’ outgrew its town-centre
premises and in 1979 the massive Royal Welsh Warehouse was opened opposite the railway
station. The local woollen mills thrived on this business.
Prior to moving his business to the Royal Welsh Warehouse Pryce Jones, like most other
businessmen in the town, had lived with his family “above the shop”. He did not include
accommodation for them at the Warehouse but bought a gentleman’s residence, Dolerw Hall,
about half a mile outside the town on Milford Road. This started a trend. Other Newtown
business and professional men moved from the town centre to larger houses that had built
along Milford Road. The local newspaper noted this change claiming that Milford Road had
become Newtown’s “West End”18.
Pryce-Jones’s extended their warehouse and in 1895 built the Royal Welsh Factory
opposite their warehouse.
The boom was not to last. Other weavers were competing with Pryce Jones. In order to cut
his costs it was rumoured that he was buying-in cheaper flannel from Lancashire and
relabelling it as “Welsh”. They continued to maufacture garments in Newtown but the local
mills went into decline. The Severn Valley Mill closed in 1904. Various entrepreneurs tried
to revive the fortunes of the Cambrian Mills, the largest woollen mill in Wales, but it was
beyond help and it was not rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1912. The Commercial Mills
struggled on until 1938, but it was the destruction of the Cambrian Mills that effectively
marked the end of weaving as Newtown’s staple manufacture.
However, Newtown remained a small rural market town still with a market day on Tuesday
as directed by Edward I in his charter to Roger Mortimer. Livestock sales were still held in
the main streets. This left the town in an unsanitary state and there had been complaints for
many years about it. Eventualy, in 1935, a new smithfield was created on fields aready owned
by the UDC on Pool Road.
The population declined from over 7,000 in the 1880s to below 6,000 in the 1930s. In the
early years of the twentieth century there was little new building in the town, apart from new
hospital, The Montgomeryshire Infirmary, in Llanfair road in 1911. However the decline in
population made it possible to increase the size of many dwellings by “knocking through”
pairs of one-up one-down houses. Nevertheless the resulting houses were still of poor quality
and many were described as slums.
Efforts by the town’s Urban District Council began after the First World War to improve the
housing stock of the town. In 1923 they built their first council houses, Park Terrace, a row of
six on Llanidloes Road. The bricks for this development were donated by David Davies of
Llandinam. Davies, in 1925, also donated bricks for the next council houses, Dinam Terrace
on Canal Road, but this time he added the condition that for each house that was built two
slum houses in the town centre should be demolished. Coedyffridd (1926) and Maesderwen
(1938) followed as council developments.
Private speculative development began in 1934 with houses on the site of the Cambrian
Mills and on Barn Fields.
An unusual arrival in the town between the wars was a large aircraft hangar brought from
Lincolnshire and rebuilt on Llanidloes Road primarily for use as a concert hall, the County
Pavilion, but quickly pressed into use for all manner of public events.
8
For the duration of the Second World War the population of the town about doubled. First
to arrive were hundreds of children evacuated from Merseyside. They were followed by
several thousand soldiers who were initially accommodated in the former Severn Valley
Mills and the County Pavilion. Later a camp of brick, wood, and corrugated iron huts was
built adjacent to the railway line on Dolfor Road.
In 1942, under conditions of great secrecy, a large “shadow factory” was built on Pool
Road. It was occupied by Accles & Pollocks Ltd, a subsidiary of Tube Investments. They
employed about 800 workers making military aircraft parts and sten gun barrels. The former
Commercial Mills were taken over by another engineering company. The Royal Welsh
Factory and other buildings in the town housed a Royal Navy Victualling Depot.
Even before the war ended it was clear that there was going to be a severe housing shortage
in the town and the UDC put plans in hand to build more council houses. Once hostilities
ceased work began on a scheme to build 92 houses on land off Dolfor Road adjacent to the
now largely abandoned army camp. The housing estate was an ambitious project at a time of
austerity. It was designed on the “garden village” principle with an average of 9 houses to the
acre. The estate was named Garth Owen (Owen’s Garden) in tribute to Robert Owen who
was born in Newtown and was also seen as they originator of what became garden villages.
Post war shortages of building materials made progress slow and the people in need of
homes became impatient. They took matters into their own hands and “squatted” in the huts
of the army camp. Living conditions in the huts was squalid and it was a great relief when
there were council houses ready for these families. Over the next eight years the Garth Owen
estate was extended.
Once the immediate housing shortage had been dealt with, the UDC embarked on a large
slum clearance scheme to replace the houses, particularly in the Ladywell are which had been
considered slums since the late nineteenth century. A new estate was begun on what had been
Maesyrhandir Farm, adjacent to the western extremity of Garth Owen. The proposal was to
move families a street at time into the new houses in an effort to maintain the strong sense of
community that existed in the older parts of the town.
Post war industry was mostly centred on the former shadow factory which had been
allocated by the government to another Tube Investments subsidiary, Phillips’ Cycles which
became one of the town’s principle employers, along with Pryce Jones’s mail order, now a
prat of Lewis’s of Liverpool. The precision engineering works in the former Commercial
Mills became Price & Orphin’s.
Montgomeryshire had long had a reputation for being at the forefront of educational
development, and this was continued in the immediate post-war years by the County Council,
urged on by their architect, Herbert Carr, and successive Directors of Education, T Glyn
Davies and J A Davies, set about erecting new school buildings across the county. Following
the 1944 Education Act Newtown had three secondary schools: a Grammar School, in the
former County Intermediate School opposite the railway station, a Secondary Modern School
which had taken over much of Penygloddfa Primary School, and a County Technical School
which had moved from old buildings Penygloddfa into the army huts recently vacated by the
squatters. This was all unsatisfactory so a new comprehensive school was planned. However
legislation permitting the the establishment of comprehensive schools was not yet in place,
but T Glyn Davies managed to get consent to build a comprehensive and a secondary modern
school on the same site, the site of the Technical School in the army huts. In the event the
new school campus was a comprehensive, Newtown High School, from the day it opened in
1957, the Technical School taking over the old Grammar School buildings.
Despite these post-war efforts the population of Newtown, and indeed the whole of Mid
Wales continued to decline. Professor Arthur Beacham was commissioned by the Welsh
Office to undertake a study of the problem. The report, when it was published in 1964x,
9
painted a grim picture. It predicted that unless there was substantial government intervention
Mid Wales, and Newtown with it, would become depopulated to the extent that it would
become unsustainable.
Beacham’s report revived a plan that had been around for some years. Since the end of the
war there had been plans for a large new town to be built centred on Caersws ,a notion which
of course had been around since mediaeval times. It was to have had a population of around
50,000 to form a settlement large enough to withstand the centripetal force of the West
Midlands and to form a home for what was referred to as “the Birmingham overspill”. These
proposals met with strong opposition, particularly from the agricultural interests in
Montgomeryshire, and the plans were not implemented, although they were not abandoned.
The Beacham report breathed new breath into this grand scheme. James Griffiths, MP, the
first Secretary of State for Wales, commissioned the consultants Economic Associates to
produce detailed proposals for the new town at Caersws, to be built under the New Towns
Act of 1965. Jim Griffiths was not new to the idea. In fact the original 1947 proposal
probably originated with him. Certainly throughout the 1950s he had been an ardent advocate
of the idea even, in private at least, suggesting that the new town should become the capital
of Wales.
Economic Associates published their proposals in 1966. The new town was to take up most
of the area around Caersws and extend to Llanidloes to the west and Newtown to the east,
these old towns becoming suburbs of the new one.
Again there was vociferous opposition to the plans. However, another consideration has
become pressing. In 1960 and 1964 Newtown had been devastated by two floods which had
torn through the town centre. The first flood had been considered to be a once in 150 years
event. When it happened again four years later, it clearly wasn’t. Without new flood defences
Newtown was doomed, but neither the town nor the county could afford such works.
Jim Griffiths, who had been shocked by what he saw when he visited Newtown after the
second flood, came up with a possible solution. Instead of starting the Mid Wales new town
at Caersws it could start with the eventual suburb of Newtown, thus releasing sufficient
central government funds for, amongst other things, a flood prevention scheme. Under the
1965 New Towns Act, Newtown New Town Development Corporation was set up in 1968.
(The name, not surprisingly, was to change, first to Mid Wales Development and then to the
Development Board for Rural Wales, or more colloquially,just “The Board”.) In November
1968 they published their plan to double the population of Newtown from 5,500 to 11,000 in
ten years. In the introduction to the plan it was pointed out that Newtown was in a narrow
part of the upper Severn Valley so doubling its size would inevitably lead to a ribbon
development three and a half miles long. Newtown was still in the wrong place.
Under the 1965 Act the Board had sweeping powers. They were not subject to local
democratic processes such as the planning system and they were able to buy whatever
property they needed to fulfil their remit. It was a painful time for the existing population.
However work soon began on a comprehensive flood prevention scheme for the town centre.
This involved the diversion of a stretch of the river.
To be in a position to attract industrialists to the town a pool of labour had to be created.
Two large housing estates were built, Trehafren, adjacent to the north side of Llanidloes
Road, and Treowen to the south of the railway line. Trehafren was later extended and
Maesydail, to the west of Maesyrhandir, added. Land between Barnfields and Llanfair Road
was allocated for private development. Later, land at Vaynor Farm was also used for Board
and private housing.
Once people had been persuaded to come to live in Newtown, rent free at first, factories
were offered on new industrial estates at Dyffryn, Vastre and Mochdre. The aim was to
attract a range of small industrial enterprises to the town giving economic security in their
10
diversity, thus avoiding the high unemployment that had followed the closure of Phillips’s
Cycles in 1958.
It had been planned to build a new loop road encircling the primary shopping area in the
town centre, but this was never completed. The section joining Severn Square with the north
end of Broad Street had proved to be too controversial and was not built. To increase the
town’s shopping capacity the Ladywell Centre was added to the south of Market Street.
One of the town’s long established industries, Lewis’s Tannery, which has stood just
downstream of the Old Church, was moved to new premises on the Dyffryn Estate, as far
downwind of the town as possible; it produced dreadful smells. The Tannery buildings and
the nineteenth century houses around it were demolished and replaced by an estate of small
flats, St Mary’s Close.
To cope with increased educational needs New primary schools were built at Treowen and
Maesyrhandir. The New Road “Board” School had been replaced by Hafren County Primary
School off Park Street following the use of the site for the 1965 National Eisteddfod of Wales
and Penygloddfa was grsdully rebuilt and extended on its original site. St Mary’s Roman
Catholic School which had been established in Dolerw Hall, Sir Pryce-Pryce Jones’s former
home, in 1949 was moved to a new, larger, building adjacent to the Hall.
Newtown High School had a large enough site to allow for considerable expansion. The
Technical School, which had become the Montgomeryshire College of Further Education in
1960, was not so fortunate. A scheme was drawn up to extend it alongside the Station Yard as
far as the site of the Severn Valley Mills, but eventually a new campus was established a mile
and a half to the west of the town on Llanidloes Road. To the college was added a new
theatre to replace the County Pavilion, which had become unsafe.
It took the Board twenty, rather than ten years to meet their target but by 1988 the
population of the town had risen to near the planned target of 11,000. they had achieved
almost all they had set out to do. There were however two significant failures. They had not
established their proposed large hotel and they had not built the planned “relief road” or
bypass to the south of the town. These two omissions were to trouble the town for many years
to come. A proposed second road bridge over the river had been proposed by the Board but it
was not completed until 1993. It was named the Cambrian Bridge as it linked the site of the
Cambrian Foundry on the south side of the river with Cambrian Gardens, on the site of the
Cambrian Mills on the north.
But in1988 it necessary to decide on what should happen now that government funded
development was coming to an end. There were three options. The first was to leave the town
to fend for itself, or secondly to provide sufficient government support to sustain it at its
current size. The third option considered was to double the size of the town once more, this
time to a population of 22,000. (No mention was made of the proposed new town at Caersws,
although it would seem that the plan was never formally abandoned.)
The second option was chosen and indeed government money was made available to
existing industries in the town. In particular grants were given to two formerly small local
businesses that had grown into worldwide concerns, Laura Ashley and Control Techniques.
With the ending of council house building public housing was placed in the hands of
housing associations, who built mainly small developments on infill sites.
Prior to Newtown becoming a New Town there had been no overall development plan for
the settlement area and with the ending of the Development Board’s powers there was again
no plan for the town’s future development. Montgomeryshire District Council had powers to
draw up a Local Plan but had declined to use them, despite entreaties from the Town Council.
However the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990 gave the Planning Authority no choice
in the matter. A local Plan for Montgomeryshire was drawn up and a Deposit Version of it
was published in 1995x. In accordance with the 1988 decision it did not envisage major
11
expansion of the town but it noted that the new Cambrian Bridge and repairs to the Long
Bridge had meant that “access to the northern side of Newtown has been greatly improved”,
thus opening up development possibilities north of the river. The largest area allocated for
residential development was a part of the Rock Farm Estate alongside the Llanllwchiairn
Road between Lonesome Lane and Tynybitfel, although the Plan noted that “further road
improvement may be necessary to permit the development”. No road improvements were
made but some of the development went ahead anyway.
The Local Plan also proposed that the settlement area be extended beyond the town’s
existing boundary to the west of the Mochdre Brook. Land at Glanhafren and Glandulas was
allocated for “larger scale residential development”. There was strong opposition to this
proposal from the parishes of Mochdre and Penstrowed and this part of the plan was
eventually dropped.
There was a proposal to move the Montgomeryshire Infirmary to land adjacent to the
College, by then renamed Coleg Powys. To the east of the town it was proposed to move St
Giles’ Golf Club elsewhere and develop its golf course as industrial and amenity land.
Neither of these developments took place within the life of the Local Plan.
The Local Plan was replaced by the Powys Unitary Development Plan which was adopted
by the County Council in 2010, but that plan retained most of the features of its predecessor.
The viability of Newtown’s town centre shopping area had been challenged for many years
by larger attractions over the English border but in the closing years of the twentieth century
another threat arose: out of town shopping facilities, particularly supermarkets. The first to be
built was Quik Save, now the Co-op opposite the railway station, in 1986. The much larger
Safeway, now Morrison’s, opened Pool Road in 1991. The came Lidl on Llanidloes Road in
2008 and finally (at least according to the Local Planning Authority), Tesco on the site of the
Smithfield on Pool Road in 2010. These developments, together with the economic woes that
began in 2008 will probably give rise to further changes in the town centre and indeed the
town itself.
Housing development continued into the 21st century, principally by housing associations
but with some private development. Most of this took place on sites within the existing
developed area such as Vaynor and Lower Canal Road. There were also privately developed
sites at Brynmor Parc, Bryn Lane and Brimmon Road which slightly extended the developed
area of the town. However there was no industrial development necessary As there were
many empty premises on the industrial estates.
The character of Newtown will probably not change greatly during the current economic
difficulties but should the proposed bypass be built around the south of the town it will
probably have its effect on Newtown’s future development. Undeveloped land between the
bypass and the present settlement boundaries will be a target for infil. The new Local Plan
currently being prepared is unlikely to lead to major changes in the development patterns of
the town.
REFERENCES
1. Arnold, C, The Archaeology of Montgomeryshire, p10
2. Putnam, W G, Mont Colls
3. ?
4. Richards, M, A History of Newtown, The Powysland Club 2001
5. Carter, H, Towns in Wales.
6. Calendar of patent rolls, Edward I, membrane 25
7. The author is grateful for the assistance of Dr David Stephenson in determining the layout of mediaeval
Newtown.
8. Information on the early settlers is Newtown provided by Dr Stephenson.
9. At the time of Newtown Hall’s demolition a “man from a museum” did a detailed study of the hall, but at the
time of writing the whereabouts of this study is a mystery.
12
10. In 1984 the Boundary Commission invited Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn Town Council to adopt the modern
spelling, Llanllwchaearn. The Council decided they were quite happy with the old spelling, so the town remains
as Newtown and Llanllwchaiarn.
11. Wheeler, Richard, The Medieval Church Screen of the Southern Marches, Logaston Press 2006.
12. Owen, Robert autobiog
13. The early years of the woollen industry in Mid Wales are described in:
Dodd, A H, The Industrial Revolution in North Wales, UWP 1933.
Jenkins, J Geraint, The Welsh Woollen Industry, National Museum of Wales, 1969.
14. Mont Colls Vol 73, p54.
15. Deeds of 35 Park Street dated 1800.
16. Salopian Journal, 3rd March 1819.
17. Montgomeryshire Herald, 1835
18. Montgomeryshire Express, 30th January 1872.