Westgate Hotel, Newport

“The strength people need to proceed along the path of human development can come only from the spiritual worlds.”
Rudolf Steiner
I’m helping out with the local family history journal production, and it’s due, and I wanted to use some photographs I had of the interior of the Westgate. It was one of my early commissions as a freelance; basically I rang up the developer and said “give us a job”? And they did! But I wanted to have a “timeless” external photo as well, the ones I had were just over twenty years ago and there was lots of external ‘clutter’ and signage. So I thought I’d call down to Newport and get a few shots (no pun intended) on a quiet Sunday morning.
For a bit of context, The Westgate is the scene of the ‘Newport Rising’ as it seems to be called now. In November 1839 a group of local Chartists, part of a nationwide activist group calling for political reform, organised a protest march in which thousands from the Welsh valleys converged on Newport. As ever, the true story is lost in the mists of time but it’s generally accepted that some were armed and their arrival was expected – the Westgate Hotel was occupied by armed soldiers, and also housed Chartist prisoners under arrest. In the brief and bloody battle that ensued about twenty were killed and a further fifty injured, the true numbers would never be known. In the subsequent trials the leaders were convicted of treason and sentenced to death, later commuted to transportation.
One of the leaders, John Frost, was subsequently pardoned and is commemorated locally and most of the Chartists demands have since been enshrined in UK law.