Celebrating Your Projects
How a new walking trail in Newport will commemorate a milestone in the fight for the popular vote
The Welsh city of Newport was the location of one of the bloodiest uprisings in British history on 4 November 1839. Nearly 10,000 supporters of the pro-democracy Chartist movement marched on the town, and the Army opened fire on the crowd, killing 22. In November 2018 local charity Our Chartist Heritage (OCH) unveiled the Chartist Walking Trail, a project to create a walking tour of sites connected with the Rising that is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. We spoke to OCH chair Pat Drewett to find out more.
What Progress Have You Made?
The first part of the process has been done – we’ve laid roundels in the ground, which demarcate the Chartist Walking Trail. The actual designs were chosen by public vote. They run on part of the route that the Chartists took down Stow Hill.
To celebrate completing the first phase, we held Newport Rising, the first festival celebrating the Newport Chartists, on 2–4 November. We had a torchlit march from Belle Vue Park to the Westgate Hotel, where the Rising took place, which hundreds of people took part in. The age range was huge – from perhaps two or younger up to 70 years old and beyond. We were delighted about this, because one of the aims of the Chartist project is to develop and widen a participation in heritage and heritage events celebrating the Chartists. The festival was popular and very successful overall, and I think we’ll run it again this year on Saturday 2 November.
What Will Happen Next?
The second phase involves placing plaques on various buildings along the route highlighting the historic aspects of sites such as St Woolos Church (now Newport Cathedral), St Mary’s Church, the Westgate itself, the mayor’s house, and the house that the police sergeant lived in at the time – Cross House. The police collected the Chartists’ guns after the riot and stored them here as evidence for the trial, which took place in Monmouth. There’s also one site where a young artist called James Flewitt Mullock witnessed the Rising from the first floor of a building opposite the hotel. He drew the scene some time later, and the result of his work is what we now know as the Mullock Print.
Why Do You Think It’s Important To Remember Newport’s Chartist Legacy?
We have had some visitors from Canada who were related to John Frost, the Chartist leader in Newport. They came across and we were able to take them to various Chartist-related sites in Gwent, and they were very grateful. There have been other people following a family connection, including somebody who was asking about another one of the Chartists in Newport. In particular, they were keen to find out when their relative was released from prison, and where they lived after the Rising. So the Chartist Walking Trail very much links up with people and people’s heritage – all of our heritage, really. Even though my family aren’t directly connected to any of the Chartists, it’s still my heritage and the heritage of everyone who lives in this area – and I think we should be proud of it.
‘The Chartist Walking Trail very much links up with people’s heritage’