AFTER three months of painstaking work it is now possible to gaze at Medieval Newport in 3D, as a model of the city centre is on display at the University of South Wales.
The diorama shows the castle; the Newport ship; Newport’s medieval friary and its city walls, in a detailed model of the settlement in years gone by.
Cllr Charles Ferris, who helped organise the project, said: “I’m delighted with it – it’s absolutely wonderful. It does what we hoped it would do and demonstrates the size of the Newport ship compared to the houses of the day. It would have been far larger than any of the houses and would have been the biggest structure in the city apart from the castle.”
Artist Rubin Eynon wanted to show Newport would have looked more than 500 years ago, with the centrepiece a model of the medieval ship discovered on the banks of the Usk in 2002.
The Civic Society secured £8,100 funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund for the diorama to take shape after the Friends of the Newport Ship suggested the idea.
Civic Society co-chairman Nick Webb, who is running as Conservative candidate for Newport West in next year’s General Election, said: “Particularly at this moment in time, when we are not sure quite when the ship is ever going to be on regular public display, it will be a great chance for people to be reminded of it and its value.”
The diorama is on display at the city centre campus of the University of South Wales, at the same location shown years previously in the model – so onlookers can think of it as a medieval ‘you are here’.
School pupils at St Mary’s, St Michael’s and St Woolos primary schools as well as members of the Kensington Art Group helped with the model, painting the plaster houses for the six feet by four feet tableau.
Visit: newportship.org
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