Cylchgronau Cymru

Memories of Newport Castle as a Brewery Herbert Godfrey Jones My forbears on my father's side came from the town of Monmouth as is evidenced by my grandfather's indentures (dated 12th March 1839) wherein he was apprenticed to a William Jones (probably his father) of Monmouth as a cooper. Upon finishing his apprenticeship, my grandfather, Charles Jones married Ellen Smith of the Buckholt and eventually moved to Newport where he was employed as a cooper by Searle and Herring who had a brewery in Newport Castle. My father was born in St. Mary Street in 1866 and attended school at the National School in Commercial Street opposite St. Pauls Church where they paid, I believe, fourpence a week for tuition. As my father was one of a large family (he was ninth of a family of ten children) it was necessary to start to earn a living as soon as possible and at the age of twelve he left school and started work at the Castle Brewery where he became cellar foreman before he reached his twenty first birthday. The water for making the beer was pumped from a well in the castle courtyard. Sometime between 1885 and 1890 it became necessary to make repairs to the well. After pumping for about twenty four hours the water level was reduced sufficiently to allow workmen to descend. My father and two other men descended and discovered an underground passage which led to a similar well in Oak Terrace, a row of houses off Thomas Street, since demolished when the Post Office (of those days) was extended. This passage is described in the South Wales Argus of 20th July 1951 from an account given by my father after the Castle had been restored by the Ministry of Works. The brewery occupied the whole of the castle with the exception of the South Tower (next to the road bridge), the main entrance being in Shaftesbury Street opposite the Middle Tower. On the right of the building was a small office building which was eventually converted to a dwelling house and my family went to live there in 1898. I was three at the time and remember quite a lot about the interior of the brewery with its long cellar containing huge vats of beer. The top floor of the Centre Tower, which was roofed, was used by us as a drying room for the washing and here my elder sister and myself used to play. My younger sister was born in the house in 1898 and is the only person alive who can say she was "born in the castle". My mother did not like living in the castle, mainly because of the noise of the brewery horses at night. These were stabled near the house. Because