Commercial Street is a 700-yard (660-metre) long main shopping street leading from the city centre of Newport, South Wales.

History and description

Commercial Street and Commercial Road were created in 1810 across open pasture land which had to be raised several feet using ship ballast so that it no longer flooded at the high Spring tides. This was part of a plan by Charles Morgan, 1st Baron Tredegar to increase Newport's importance and develop his land; in 1807 he had granted a lease on 200 acres of land to allow the Tredegar Wharf Company to create the new mile-long road. The new road led approximately south-southeast from the junction with

High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

(and Westgate Hotel), linking the town centre with

Pillgwenlly Pillgwenlly ( cy, Pilgwenlli), usually known as Pill, is a community (civil parish) and coterminous electoral district (ward) in the city of Newport, South Wales. Etymology The name is an elision of " Pîl Gwynllyw" (or "Gwynllyw's Pîl" in ...

and the early Newport Docks. Notable buildings on Commercial Street were the Westgate HotelNewman, ''The Buildings of Wales: Gwent/Monmouthshire''
page 449
/ref> (now on what is called Westgate Square), Newport's Town Hall (1885 by T. M. Lockwood, demolished when it was replaced by the 1940

Civic Centre A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...

), the Empire Theatre (which burnt down in the 1940s), and several

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

s and large

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

Modern day

The northern half of Commercial Street, from Westgate Square as far as Hill Street, is part of the Town Centre Conservation Area, including many

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s rising to three or four storeys, dating from the Victorian period to the early 20th century. In the 2010s several large national stores left Commercial Street, amongst them Marks and Spencer, Burton and

Monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

leaving empty shop units, charity shops or bargain stores in their place. Joining Commercial Street to John Frost Square is Llanarth Street, the shops on which include shoe shop A. G. Meek, trading since 1912 and Vacara's Fish and Chip shop, which opened around 1900.

Sources

References

{{Commons category, Commercial Street, Newport, Wales, Commercial Street, Newport Streets and squares in Newport, Wales Shopping streets in Wales Shopping in Newport, Wales