Page 1.The Beginning.
Page 2. History.
Page 3. Newport
Page 4. The Pubs
Page 5. Photographs.
                                      Newport Pubs - An Illustrated History
    This is an excerpt from the book, which not only charts Newport's rise as the Isle of Wight's capital, but also the grrowth of its inns, hotels and pubs.  It explores how the nature of the town has changed throughout the centuries and invokes an awareness of its continuity and past.  It also relates the deliberate processes of closure, both political and economic, which have produced the town of today with its modest number of pubs.  With many rare maps and photographs, the book is a nostalgic record of a now lost aspect of this important part of Island life.

            The Beginning
 

           It was the 5th of August 1970, and on that warm summer’s evening in Newport,  I was wandering through Shide and making my way up White Pit Lane.  I had recently moved to the Island and now lived close by in Watergate Road.  The town beckoned as dusk was falling and I turned down to the left away from Mount Joy and found myself strolling along Elm Grove overlooking Nine Acres Field.  As I walked along towards St. John's Road, I stumbled across a tiny pub in the terrace of small houses.  Above the door, the sign read " The Gardeners Rest", over the window, “Mews Ales” advertised the brewer.

      I entered and found myself in a small front parlour, behind the tiny bar two nine gallon firkins of mild and  bitter rested on a small stillage.  Above them, three optics held bottles of whiskey, vodka and gin.  Another small shelf held some packets of Woodbine cigarettes and Players Senior Service. Deep red sunlight poured through the windows and illuminated motes of dust suspended in the still air.
       Very soon a large portly man appeared from a back room and asked me what I required.  I was young and aware of not being quite eighteen years old.   "Half a lager, please", I ventured.
      "Lager! I don't have any lager, nipper.  You don’t sound like someone from around here, where are you from? " he exclaimed, determined to have some fun.
      "Leave him alone, you!" a female voice cried, and a large woman, the landlord's counterpart, entered the tiny bar space, she grinned at me, "give him a light ale!".
       I didn't argue with her choice but concurred with a nod of my head and watched as the landlord selected the bottle from a small row of light ales, gave it a wipe and poured it carefully into a glass.  He left an inch for me to pour myself and set the glass and bottle carefully down on the counter.
      As he did so I became conscious of a clock ticking softly and the publican's wife gazing past me at the evening sun's glow which now lit up the tiny pub.  It was a timeless moment, one to be savoured and remembered forever, and I was conscious of it passing.
I paid my one shilling and sixpence and retired to a table by the door.  The couple lingered, bantering and exclaiming behind the tiny bar.
     Finally the portly man grasped hold of his portly wife and roared "come here my beauty!" as she giggled and squealed.  They exited as they had arrived; suddenly, leaving me sipping my light ale and wondering what I had witnessed.  I drank up and left, feeling I had stepped back into the past and knowing it would soon all be gone.
        I never drank in the Gardeners Rest again, it closed that year and slipped from my memory, I would give anything to revisit it.  Many of Newport's pubs were to follow suit over the years that followed, I was lucky to have been there to see them before they went.  Although conscious of their passing, it was only in later years that I realised how much had gone and how within a generation or two their memory would be lost forever.    This book is an attempt to rekindle their memory and a feeling for times gone.

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