Shopping on Thames Street, Newport, Rhode Island

Thames Street is a historic street in Newport, Rhode Island that is one of the oldest continuously used streets in the state. It remains the primary street in downtown Newport and runs parallel along the waterfront.

History

Thames Street (along with Marlborough Street) was one of Newport's original two streets officially laid out in Newport in 1654 and providing access to the city's many wharfs. The street takes its name from the River Thames in London, England, an area from which many of the early colonists migrated. The northern part of Thames Street originates near the

Common Burying Ground The Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery are a pair of separate cemeteries on Farewell and Warner Street in Newport, Rhode Island. Together they contain over 5,000 graves, including a colonial-era slave cemetery and Jewish graves. The pair o ...

and passes through several blocks of what was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

settlement in the area near

Easton's Point The Point (or less commonly, "Easton's Point") is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Newport, Rhode Island and has one of the highest concentrations of colonial houses in the United States. The neighborhood sits between Washington Street and F ...

. Dozens of colonial buildings survive along the street and many are still used for commercial purposes. The southern part of Thames Street was historically home to a large Irish population in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today local residents pronounce the street name with a soft "th" and which rhymes with "names" rather than the British pronunciation of "temz." Today Thames Street remains the main street in downtown Newport today and numerous restaurants, inns and stores abut it.Newport Through Its Architecture: A History Of Styles From Postmedieval To ... By James L. Yarnall (UPNE, 2005), pg. 2-3

Length

Thames Street runs for 1.5 miles (2 kilometers) through the center of Newport, beginning at Ellery Park at the intersection of Poplar and Farewell Streets and ending in the "Fifth Ward" neighborhood at the intersection of Morton Avenue and Carroll Avenue. It is a one-way southbound road for most of its length, with two exceptions. There are three sections of the street: The first runs from Ellery Park to West Marlborough Street through the city's Kerry Hill neighborhood. The second, known to locals as "Upper Thames", runs from West Marlborough to the city Post Office at the intersection of Memorial Boulevard and America's Cup Avenue. The street is

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

paved from the intersection with Touro Street until the post office. Upper Thames is a one-way street, but switches directions from southbound to northbound at the intersection with Mill Street. The third portion is known as "Lower Thames" and runs from Perry Mill at the America's Cup Avenue intersection until the road's termination. Lower Thames is one-way southbound until West Narragansett Avenue, where it becomes a two-way road for the remainder of its length.

Sites on Thames Street

Admiral Fitzroy Inn Named for Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, The Admiral Fitzroy Inn is located at 398 Thames Street (Rhode Island), Thames Street in Newport, Rhode Island, Newport, Rhode Island, in the Newport Historic District (Rhode Island), Newport Historic Distri ...

(1854) * Charles Tillinghast House (1715) * Clarke Cooke House (1780) *

Francis Malbone House The Francis Malbone House is a historic house at 392 Thames Street in Newport, Rhode Island. The house dates from 1760 and its design is attributed to Peter Harrison, a prominent architect of the period, responsible also for the Touro Synago ...

(1758) *

International Yacht Restoration School IYRS School of Technology & Trades (known as IYRS, from its previous name of the International Yacht Restoration School) is a private nonprofit school with a 3-acre campus on Thames Street in Newport, Rhode Island. IYRS focuses on training highly ...

The John Stevens Shop The John Stevens Shop, founded in 1705, is a stone carving business on Thames Street in Newport, Rhode Island, that is one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in the United States. History John Stevens was born in Oxfordshire, Eng ...

(ca. 1750) *

Museum of Newport History The Museum of Newport History is a history museum in the Old Brick Market building in the heart of Newport, Rhode Island, United States. It is owned and operated by the Newport Historical Society at 127 Thames Street on Washington Square. The b ...

(Market House) (1762) *

Newport Historic District (Rhode Island) The Newport Historic District is a historic district that covers 250 acres (100 ha) in the center of Newport in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. It was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1968 due to its extensive and well-preserved ...

* Newport Steam Factory (1831) * Perry Mill (1835) * Samuel Whitehorne House (1811) *

Southern Thames Historic District The Southern Thames Historic District encompasses the commercial and residential area immediately to the south of the colonial center of Newport, Rhode Island. This area, covering about , was developed both residentially and commercially betwee ...

References

{{commonscat, Thames Street (Newport, Rhode Island)

External links

Information about Thames Street
Geography of Newport, Rhode Island Roads in Rhode Island Tourist attractions in Newport, Rhode Island