Newport House, formerly the Guildhall, is a former municipal building in Dogpole,

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is sited on the River Severn, northwest of Wolverhampton, west of Telford, southeast of Wrexham and north of Hereford. At the 2021 United ...

, England. It is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The boundary wall is separately listed.

History

The site on which the current building stands had previously been occupied by a 16th-century mansion known as Castle Gates House, which was dismantled and moved to a new location near Shrewsbury Castle. The current building, which was designed for Francis Newport, 1st Earl of Bradford, was completed in 1696. A porch with the Doric columns was added in the 19th century. Newport's grandson, Henry Newport, the 3rd Earl, leased it to Anne Smyth who became the mistress of

William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, (22 March 16847 July 1764) was an English Whigs (British political party), Whig politician and peer who sat in the House of Commons of Great Britain, British House of Commons from 1707 to 1742 when he was r ...

. The house was then passed down through the Pulteney family until it was inherited by William Pulteney who lived in it for a few years in the early 19th century, when he was serving as the local member of parliament. In 1810 Earl of Darlington successfully laid claim to the Pulteney Estate after the Countess of Bath died intestate in 1808. Newport House was then bought by William Hazledine, a Coleham ironmaster in 1821 and subsequently acquired by a Mr John Hughes in the 1840s. In the late 19th century it served as the home of Edward Burd, a surgeon at the Salop Infirmary. In 1917 Newport House was acquired by the

municipal borough A municipal borough was a type of local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of ...

of Shrewsbury, which had previously used part of the Shire Hall in the Market Square as its meeting place. The building continued to be the local seat of government after the enlarged Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council was formed in 1974 until the council decided to move to modern facilities at Frankwell Quay in Frankwell in 2004. The opportunity was taken at the time to carry out an archaeological survey which identified a

sherd This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

dating back to the late

Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

era. Newport House was subsequently converted back for residential use as a family home.

References

{{reflist City and town halls in Shropshire Grade II* listed buildings in Shropshire Buildings and structures in Shrewsbury Buildings and structures completed in 1696 Government buildings completed in the 17th century

History

See also

References