LAST week’s Now and Then picture showed Newport Market in Dock Street as seen from across the River Usk in 1974.

THIS is Newport’s iconic provision market, the last piece of outstanding Victorian architecture still standing in the town and built in the Renaissance style.

The market was built in 1888, replacing an earlier building at a cost of £42,000.

The massive central hall is nearly 200 feet long. There was room for over 150 stalls and at one time they were all occupied by traders serving the bustling shoppers of Newport.

Sadly the market is only a ghost of its former self, with many long-established traders having packed up and gone.

Also gone is the busy upstairs market where on certain days you would find the WI stall and the local farmers’ wives selling fresh eggs and home-made produce.

There are two truncated towers at either end of the main building that were topped with iron railings.

These were cast in the Isca Foundry that stood on the site of the Olympia cinema, later Olympia House, home to the Passport Office.

Dave Woolven, Newport

THIS week’s pair of Now and Then pictures shows Newport provisions market taken from the opposite side of the River Usk.

It would be interesting to know when the Then photo was taken as it does not include the steel wave but it does include Kingsway, and also railings in the foreground that look quite modern.

The steel wave was designed by a man called Fink which was a derogatory term in American slang. If it represents a wave, why is it facing downstream when waves break upstream?

It was not an original design but was based on an abstract construction by a man named Petersen and it used to be on display in the window at the entrance to the museum and library, and was later stored in the basement of the building.

Brian J J Jelf, Newport