IDENTITY CRISIS OF VILLAGE IN MIDDLE
NESTLED a few miles from the coastline, Marshfield is slightly unusual when it comes to geography. The village of around 3,000 people is located almost exactly between two of Wales’ largest cities.
Residents pay council tax to Newport City Council and vote in Newport elections, and are represented in the UK parliament by Newport West MP Ruth Jones. But they have a Cardiff postcode in their address. Seems straightforward enough, right?
But for some of the residents there, it’s not quite that simple. From food deliveries to insurance and personal affinities, where you come from is slightly more complicated than what postcode you have or who receives your tax payments.
We went to Marshfield to ask people which city they feel they belong to, and this is what they said.
Pat Murphy, 67, lives near St Mellons Road, not far from the border.
“It’s supposed to be halfway, isn’t it?” she said. “We’ve got a Cardiff postcode, yet we’re classed as Newport. This has been the problem. People down here longer than me and they’re having to put up with this, being classed as Cardiff. But it’s not.”
Originally from the Gaer in Newport, Pat said she finds it strange to have a Cardiff postcode despite living in a house owned by Newport City Homes.
“I normally do my shopping in the supermarket in Newport town. In lockdown, they wouldn’t deliver because they said I was Cardiff. They said if the police see the driver coming down, then he’d be in trouble. Yet they were coming with the van this way [from Newport].
“I said it was silly because you’re coming from Newport to deliver, not Cardiff. I argued blue with them on the phone, saying it was ridiculous. I don’t drive, I rely on a bus service. It went on for a month or so before they said they’d deliver.
“My daughter had to shop for me up in Aldi in Rogerstone. I’d have been starving otherwise! I think they should change the postcode.”
Pat’s next-door neighbour, 85-yearold Jean Hitchens, has lived across different border villages including Castleton and St Brides.
“I would definitely say Newport,” she said. “It’s nearer to Newport than Cardiff. But if you put in a Cardiff postcode when you’re getting insurance, it’s dearer.”
Phil and Margaret Whitwell help run the nearby Castleton Baptist Church - a misnomer, given that it’s located in Marshfield rather than Castleton itself.
Even for a couple married for over 50 years, the argument over where they live sparks a lively debate.
“I say it’s Cardiff,” Phil, 74, said. “Our postcode is Cardiff. If we’re doing our shopping we go to Cardiff. There aren’t
as many shops in Newport. You go to Newport any time of day and it’s empty.”
Margaret, meanwhile, assured she is “Newport born and bred”.
“I always have been,” she added confidently.
The disparity between the village’s postcode and council boundary has created other issues, too.
“I think if we were in Cardiff [council area], we’d probably get a bit more, services might be a bit better,” Phil said.
“I’m disabled and our doctor is in St Mellons in Cardiff, so I can’t get nothing up in Newport because they say they can’t pay a Cardiff doctor. So if I need stuff I’ve got to go to the doctors, get the prescription and get the chemist to get it. When I had a doctor in Newport, I could get everything delivered straight from there. I just phoned to say I was out and they sent it automatically.
“Even though we’re in Newport, they send us to the Heath [hospital in Cardiff ].”
A mile or so up the road in nearby Castleton, the Coach and Horses Beefeater pub and restaurant lies right along the city boundary, just off the A48.
They said the location has also caused confusion for them.
“We’re in Newport but we have a Cardiff postcode. During the local lockdown last year, people obviously couldn’t leave their local area,” explained manager Stacey Salter.
“We had to ask everyone where they were coming from and we actually had to turn people away even though they’d come from Cardiff only five minutes up the road.”
But one burning question I have is; does getting post ever get confusing?
Luckily, we bumped into postman Glyn Patten, who has been with the Post Office for 45 years and is known by many as ‘The General’.
He lives in Castleton and, perhaps surprisingly, said he’s rarely come across issues caused by Marshfield’s slightly strange geography.
“It doesn’t [create issues] unless you don’t put the postcode on there. You get a lot of Christmas cards addressed to St Brides, Marshfield, and they go to NP10.
“But we don’t get a great deal. With a postcode, it’ll go to the right office to be sorted and delivered.”