Nottinghamshire 
ContentsThe Borough of Newark
Newark-Upon-Trent is an ancient and well-built market town, borough and parish, pleasantly situated in the middle of a fertile district, at the junction of the Great North Road with the turnpikes from Lincoln, Nottingham, Sheffield &c., and on the lines of the Great Northern and Midland Railways, both of which have neat and convenient stations. It is 124 miles north by west of London, 8 miles east of Southwell, 21 miles north-east by east of Nottingham, 20 miles south-south-wast of Retford, and 16 miles south-west of Lincoln, and is the capital of the hundred and deanery to which it gives name. In 1851 it contained 11,330 inhabitants and 2,080 acres of land.
The trade of the town consists principally in making malt, ale, flour, linen and smock frocks, to a considerable extent. There are in the town and neighbourhood several breweries, 20 corn mills, and a considerable number of malt kilns, and an extensive linen manufactory (Hawton Mills), where fine linen is bleached after the irish manner. The malt made in 1851 amounted to 88,065 quarters.
Newark derives much of its prosperity from being a public thoroughfare, its well supplied market and fairs, and from its participation in the traffic on the Great Northern and Midland Companys' Railways, and Trent Navigation. The market is held on Wednesday, and is well supplied with corn, meat, butter, vegetables, fruit &c., and once a fortnight with cattle. Six fairs are held here normally: on Friday before Careing Sunday (the Sunday before Palm Sunday), May 14th, Whit Tuesday, August 2nd, November 1st and monday before December 11th, for horses, cattle, sheep, swine &c. A large cheese market was established in 1804, and continues to be held on the Wednesday before October 2nd.
The Market Place is a spacious area, lined with good buildings, which on the south side have a long piazza under the second floors. On the western side stands the elegant Town Hall, which was erected by the Corporation out of the produce of testamentary estates, for the improvement of the town, which they were empowered to sell under an Act of Parliament, passed in the 13th year of George III. The total expenses of the erection was £1,790. Two wings have since been added. The front is light and airy. It is three storeys high, having seven windows in each storey. The room used for assemblies is elegantly finished woth Corinthian columns and pilasters, and a richly carved ceiling. At one end of the edifice the Sessions are held, and at the other the Corporation transact public business. In the rear are very extensive shambles. The principal entrance into the Market Place are Stodman Street, Bridge Street and Church Street.
The Corn Exchange, Castlegate, was opened September 1848. The length of the interior is 83 feet, and it is 32 feet wide. The floor is several feet above the level of the street, thus affording space below for a suite of rooms, which are in reality on the ground floor. Upon entering the exchange the visitor is struck with the admirable manner in which the greatest possible quantity of light is conveyed from the roof, which is obtained by three lights of unpolished plate glass, extending the full length of the hall. The style of the building is Italian. The composition is of great simplicity in its arrangements, having three arched recessed doorways of entrance on a large scale, which give light and shade and practical effect. These are enriched with appropriate designs, each division having lunettes decorated with shells, with corn springing from the centre. In the spandrils of the archways, between the doors, are shields charged with sheaves of corn. The capitals of the pillows are expressly designed to illustrate the purposes of the building, and the capitals of the pillows in the interior correspond with those of the exterior, consisting of ears of corn. The centre of the front is surmounted by a clock tower, and the turret is flanked by two figures, each seven feet high, representing Agriculture and Commerce. The entire cost of the building was upwards of £6,000 raised by a number of shareholders. There is a comfortable house attached, in which Mr John Webster Stevenson resides, who has the charge of the building.
The Cattle Market, situated within the precincts of the Castle, is a spacious area of about 70 yards square, encompassed with a brick wall, with three iron gates. It is the property of John Handley Esq. The market for fat cattle is held every other Tuesday.
The other principal streets are Appletongate, Bladertongate, Barnbygate, Cartergate, Castlegate, Kirkgate, Lombard Street, Middlegate, Millgate, Northgate and Wilson Street, in which there still remain many ancient houses, except in the last, which was built on a uniform plan in 1766 by the Rev. Dr. Wilson. the streets of a more modern date are Pelham Street, Portland Street, Guildhall Street, and some others. An Act of Parliament for paving the town was passed as early as 1585, but it seems almost to have been a dead letter till 1798, when it was strengthened by another Act, under which the work of paving, lighting, cleansing &c. has been extended to every street and thoroughfare. There was anciently a cross in the Market Place, but the only one now in the town is Beamond Cross, at the junction of Cartergate and Lombard Street which, an inscription says, was erected in the reign of Edward IV, repaired by Charles Mellish Esq., recorder, in 1778, and again repaired and beautified by the Corporation in 1801. In 1806 an Act was obtained for more effectually repairing the roads from Newark to Mansfield and Southwell, and to Leadenham Hill in Lincolnshire.
Newark is not upon the Trent, but upon the River Devon which, after receiving the Smite and the Car-dike, communicates with a short cut from the trent, and passing under the majestic ruins of the castle, pursues a north-easterly course to that river at Crankleys, near Winthorpe, so that the two streams form on the north-west of the town a large elliptical island of low but fertile pasture land, which they so frequently inundate, that about the year 1770 it was found necessary to connect the two bridges by a flood road, which cost £12,000, and now bids defiance to the highest floods. The bridge at the Newark end of this elevated road is a substantial fabric of seven arches, erected in 1775 by the Duke of Newcastle. In 1850, the stone wall was taken down and the bridge widened about 4 yards, making a footpath of 2 yards wide on each side, and a substantial palisade put up in place of the wall. The bridge which crosses the Trent at Kelham, about two miles from Newark, was rebuilt in 1851 at a cost of £3,000. The Haling Path bridge, which crosses the Devon near the large water mill, consists of 5 segmental arches, each 14 feet span, and was built in 1819 by the Newark Navigation Company who, in 1772, obtained an Act of Parliament for widening and improving the stream, which by a circuitous course of four miles, now brings the Trent navigation past the walls of Newark. Anciently three narrow and inconvenient wooden bridges occupied the sites of these durable structures of brick and stone.
White's Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853
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[Last updated: Friday 3rd October 1997 - Clive Henly]
© Copyright C.R.G. Henly 1997