The Newnham Historical Collection
This is our Newnham history book and is provided in loose leaf format to allow us to add chapters as we learn more about the history of our village.
We have a large collection of historical photographs and we include as many of these as are relevant to the text and also provide maps where these can be helpful.
Part 1 (published in 2013) consists of five chapters:
1 Introduction.
2 A Brief Historical Survey – gives an overall view of Newnham’s history
3 The River Port – studies the rise and fall of the all-important river trade which brought so much prosperity to the town
4 Victorian Newnham – introduces the town’s emergence as an important administrative centre
5 1881 – The Visit of a Former Resident – allows the creation of a fictional character to provide a walk through the Newnham of the time
Part 2 (published in 2015) comprises a further six chapters:
6 The Civil War in Newnham – provides an explanation of the Civil War skirmish that brought Colonel Massie to the town
7 Coaches and Thoroughfares – takes a look at how transport was provided and examines changes in the names of roads within the community
8 The Glassworks – explains that the first glassworks to use coal as a fuel was based here
9 The Day the Church Burnt Down – gives a detailed report of a dramatic event in the history of the church
10 The Haie – offers a brief look at the Kerr family and at their family home, The Haie
11 A Resident Remembers – 1897 – provides another opportunity to follow a fictional character through Newnham’s past
Part 3 (published in 2017) added a further seven chapters and many more illustrations:
12 The Pubs – follows the ups and downs of the hotels and inns that littered Newnham’s High Street
13 The Schools – untangles the complicated story of the schools provided by the C of E and the Non-conformists
14 The Tithe Map – takes a cursory look at the information provided by the Tithe Map of 1839 with its accompanying Apportionment document
15 The Shops – journeys backwards in 20-year leaps through a hundred years of change
16 The Houses – studies Newnham’s High Street houses from outside (and occasionally from inside) with lots of helpful illustrations.
17 The Sanctuary – provides a history of one of Newnham’s oldest houses
18 Newnham Pill Revisited – has another look at the difficulties encountered when crossing a tidal inlet.
Part 4 (published in 2019) comprises four further chapters:
19 The Railway – a well-illustrated history of the railway, with details of routes and rolling stock
20 The Fisheries – the most comprehensive short account of the Severn fisheries, looking at the history, colourful personalities, equipment and methods
21 Memories of Newnham-on-Severn – an account of life in early 20th-century Newnham by a well-known former resident
22 The Women’s Institute – a short history written in the year of the centenary of the WI
Part 5 concludes the Collection and was published in 2019. The 14 chapters of Part 5 comprise:
23 Legal Newnham
24 Military Newnham
25 ‘Those Were the Days?’ Newnham Remembered
26 Water
27 More Houses
28 St Peter’s Church
29 Tunnels and Bridges
30 Employment
31 Newnham’s Banks
32 Development
33 Bullo
34 Street Furniture
35 Teams
36 The Telephone
The volumes are no longer available to buy, but they are available to read at Newnham Community Library. They cannot, however, be borrowed from the Library