Newport and the Burgage Plots

 

The oldest part of Newport.  Castle, Church, The Cross (where there was at one time a market cross), very wide Market Street (where there had to be enough space for stalls and animals), and the pattern of elongated burgage plots.  Following the founding of the town there were ambitious plans -- but they were slow in coming to fruition, and in 1434 there were 233 burgage plots but only 76 burgage holders.  In 1594 things were even worse -- 211 plots and only 44 occupied.   Travellers recorded that Newport was a miserable place.  But around the Regency period the town began to thrive, and many of the neglected or derelict burgage plots were brought into use, and houses built on the street frontages.  At first, many of them were no better than hovels, but by late Victorian and Edwardian times, as wealth came into the town from the coastal shipping trade,  many had been improved and extended, so that the town took on something of the appearance that we see today.

https://dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/HLC/newportandcarningli/newport.htm

This new map of part of the town shows the "medieval core" with the main streets and the pattern of burgage plots.  Between Market Street and Scholar's Brook (near the right edge of the map) the long strips are remarkably well preserved, with buildings on the street frontages.  But many of these buildings were not put up until the nineteenth century -- before that, many of the plots were under-used or derelict.  Dwellings are marked red, and commercial premises are yellow.