Heavy Haulage Newport

Heavy Haulage Newport Wales

Approximate Population: 140,100

In 1402 Rhys Gethin, General for Owain Glyndwr, forcibly took Newport Castle together with those at Cardiff, Llandaff, Abergavenny, Caerphilly, Caerleon and Usk.  During the raid the town of Newport was badly burned and St. Woolos church destroyed.

A second charter establishing the right of the town to run its own market and commerce came from Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1426. By 1521 Newport was described as having “….a good haven coming into it, well occupied with small crays [merchant ships] where a very great ship may resort and have good harbour.  ” Trade was thriving with the nearby ports of Bristol and Bridgewater and industries included leather tanning, soap making and starch making.  The town’s craftsmen included bakers, butchers, brewers, carpenters and blacksmiths. A further charter was granted by James I in 1623.

In 1648 Oliver Cromwell’s troops camped overnight on Christchurch Hill overlooking the town before their attack on the castle the next day. A cannon-ball dug up from a garden in nearby Summerhill Avenue, dating from this time, now rests in Newport Museum.

As the Industrial Revolution took off in Britain in the 19th century, the South Wales Valleys became key suppliers of coal from the South Wales coalfield, and iron: these were transported down local rivers and the new canals to ports such as Newport, and Newport Docks grew rapidly as a result. Newport became one of the largest towns in Wales and the focus for the new industrial towns of the eastern valleys of South Wales.

Heavy Haulage Newport Wales

Heavy Haulage Leicester

Heavy Haulage

Leicester Leicestershire

Approximate Population: 285,100

On 4 November 1530, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey was arrested on charges of treason and taken from York Place.   On his way south to face dubious justice at the Tower of London, he fell ill.   The group escorting him was concerned enough to stop at Leicester.   There, Wolsey’s condition quickly worsened and he died on 29 November 1530 and was buried at Leicester Abbey, now Abbey Park.

Leicester was a Parliamentarian stronghold during the English Civil War.   In 1645, Prince Rupert decided to attack the city to draw the New Model Army away from the Royalist headquarters of Oxford.   Royalist guns were set up on Raw Dykes and after an unsatisfactory response to a demand for surrender, the Newarke was stormed and the city was sacked on 30 May. Although hundreds of people were killed by Rupert’s cavalry, reports of the severity of the sacking were exaggerated by the Parliamentary press in London.

The construction of the Grand Union Canal in the 1790s linked Leicester to London and Birmingham and by 1832 the railway had arrived in Leicester; the new Leicester and Swannington Railway providing a supply of coal to the town from nearby collieries.   By 1840 the Midland Counties Railway had linked Leicester to the national railway network and by the 1860s, Leicester had gained a direct rail link to London (St Pancras) with the completion of the Midland Main Line.

Heavy Haulage Leicester Leicestershire