LAST week we featured a picture of Newport Castle from 1950.

THIS is the Old Green crossing. The photo dates from the 1950s. The cameraman was looking out of the window of the Old Green Hotel. Next to the Old Green Hotel was the King’s Head stables from when the siteKing’s Head was a coaching stop. Guests probably arrived on horseback as well.

In Victorian times parts of the castle were used as a brewery and a tannery. To the right was Kingsway and alongside it was Screwpacket Lane, where lived one of Newport’s ‘gentlemen of the road’, one Damper Dick, whose address was 3 Kingsway Arches (dampers were discarded cigarette ends).

The road to the left was Shaftesbury Street and Malpas Rd, just under the railway bridge was Wynn’s Heavy Haulage yard with their ex-US Army Diamond T tractors. Over the town bridge on the river bank was Newport (Mon) Motor Company and Pickfords travel agents and furniture removers. Next door was Davies Brothers timber yard, whose ‘office’ was a lean-to wooden shack.

The nearest further office block in the ‘Now’ photo has stood almost empty since it was built and the further office block has been empty since the tax office moved out some years ago. The train on the railway bridge was possibly hauled by a Hall or Castle-class steam locomotive - smell the smoke.

Dave Woolven, Newport

THE Now and Then is of the Newport Castle which Newport Bridge is going over. On the right was Screwpacket Lane. On the corner was a piano shop called Godfreys. There used to be a balcony on the left and a cafe called Shaftesbury. You can also see the Newport Technical College which has been turned into flats. Opposite is the Riverside pub and further up was the Ivy Bush, which has closed,. Also they got an Iceland supermarket and a car repair workshop place that does repairs etc.

M Reardon, Newport