The pictures show Bridge Street/Queen Square at various times.

The store L.H. Fearis is in the foreground, this was a general store selling all foods and fresh meat and fish and could be regarded as a forerunner to supermarkets but with a counter service.

Further up the road were Bannister & Thatcher chemists, Davies the Butchers, Davies Music Store and TSB. You cross Station Street and find yourself outside the Lyceum (theatre and Cinema) and opposite that is the Queen’s Hotel.

There was a traffic island in front of the hotel and this contained an underground gents’ toilet. On the left hand side was the yard of H A Smith wine merchants, the Lamb Inn, a crockery shop and Wilf Cann newsagents. There was also a bus stop, and in the foreground out of sight were the National & Provincial and Midland Banks respectively.

Allan Rooks, Newport

The picture is looking up Bridge Street from it’s junction with Commercial Street. The sign on the Queens Hotel is a bit of a give away!

That particular part of town has some good memories for me even though the picture was taken a long time before I was born.

It looks like the 20s or 30s, although I’m sure your more eagle-eyed readers will have a view on that. On the right, level with the Queens, the Lyceum Theatre can just be made out.

I’m fairly sure I went to a few Christmas pantos there and, in the mid to late fifties, saw my older brother compete in the local heats of the Carroll Levis Discoveries talent spotting show with his group from Malpas, The Jackstones. Sadly, that was as far as they got.

Carroll Levis had both radio and TV talent shows which used a ‘clapometer’ to decide the winners! Interestingly, the hostess that night was the now author, but then ‘starlet’, Jackie Collins, sister of Joan.Ten years later my own low key musical career was just starting and I did a few gigs in The Queens in 1967/68.

In the immediate foreground on the right was the then National Provincial Bank, before it merged with The Westminster (or was it the other way round?). It was outside the bank, opposite Fearis, early on a Saturday evening in December 1968, I asked a young lady I worked with to come out for a drink with me and we spent the evening in The Queens. We were married a few years later and still are!

Terry Eaton, Croesyceiliog, Cwmbran

This is very easy, showing the load of activity in bottom of Bridge Street. Little change here apart from the shops. Still a hive of activity, particularly for the clubs in the evenings. I am sure many will have all sorts of memories of activities over the years in this area. Sad that the Lyceum has gone and I am not sure if ‘God’s Waiting Room’ in the back bar of the Queens is still a meeting place.

Jim Dyer Newport

THE Now and Then pictures show the Queens Hotel in the centre with Bridge Street centre right leading up to the bridge over the railway and Baneswell Road going off to the left/ The ‘then’ picture includes Fearis food shop on the right and I can remember seeing staff preparing and packing butter.

Butter used to arrive in large amounts and a girl would cut a piece, weigh it and then use two paddles to shape it before wrapping it up. I used to love the smell of ground coffee. Meat had a section all to itself.

Further up the street and just visible was the Lyceum Theatre. I remember The Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore appearing there but I don’t remember seeing his horse Silver or his friend Tonto. Further up the street was The Bridge pub and the church nearby was St Lukes.

Opposite was the Halifax Building Society later replaced by Peglers supermarket and is now the Acorn recruitment agency.

On the left of the picture is The Lamb Inn, refurbished last year, it used to be a tied house for George’s Bristol beers, the best drink at that time was George’s glucose stout.

Behind the shops on the left was H A Smith’s Brewery which had a main entrance on Stow Hill.

Out of sight in the ‘now’ picture is the former post office which used to be a Marley Tile, do it yourself shop. The Harding Evans Solicitors building was previously the council offices for Magor and St Mellons Council and before that it was a hotel called The Boat.

Brian J J Jelf, Newport

Yes, the Queens Hotel where my wife and I had our wedding reception fifty five years ago and what a wonderful day it was, September 3rd 1960.

We now live in Ontario, Canada, but I still follow all the news from Newport and remember what a safe, clean place it was to live.

Linda and Jim Hill